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Bishop Clarkson 






In. Memoriam 



Bishop Clarkson 



[ake litem to be nnmbereb foitlj &Ijg saints in glorg 
everlasting 



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Published under the Direction of the Cathedral 
Chapter of the Diocese of Nebraska. 



Sifft^ 



CHICAGO: 

Jansen, McClurg & Company. 
1884. 



CONTENTS. 



Brief Biographical Sketch 7 

The Last Rites 15 

The Memorial Services 20 

Bishop Hare's Sermon 20 

Services in Chicago 43 

Dr. Vibbert's Remarks 48 

Dr. Locke's Remarks 53 

Bishop McLaren's Remarks 65 

His Civic Virtues 71 

Hon. Ezra Millard's Remarks 71 

Hon. A. J. Poppleton's Remarks 72 

Judge James W. Savage's Remarks .... 81 

Rev. W. J. Harsha's Remarks 86 

Hon. J. M. Thurston's Remarks 87 

Rev. Thomas B. Lemon's Remarks .... 89 

Resolutions and Minutes of Various Bodies . 92 

Bishops Attending the Funeral 92 

Board of Managers of the Missionary Society . 94 
Clergy of the Diocese of Nebraska and of the Mis- 
sionary Jurisdiction of Dakota 97 

Cathedral Chapter of the Diocese of Nebraska . 99 

Standing Committee of the Diocese .... 102 

Cathedral Vestry 104 

St. James Church, Chicago 106 

Board of Trustees of Nebraska College . . . 108 

Trustees of Brownell Hall 109 

Diocesan Council of 1884 113 



BRIEF 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



THIS morning's sun looks down upon a 
stricken City; and its grief brings a 
whole State to the ground in woe. 

At the hour of twelve-thirty of the clock 
yesterday morning, Bishop Clarkson breathed 
his last breath of mortal life. In the midst of 
this great calamity, could we be left to our 
own hearts, we would sit with our personal 
grief in silence. But a few words must be 
written for the public record. 

Robert Harper Clarkson was born at Get- 
tysburg, in Pennsylvania, on the 19th of No- 
vember, 1826. He was of an old and honored 
family. His grandfather, the Rev. Joseph 
Clarkson, D.D., was the first clergyman or- 
dained by Bishop White. He was rector of 
St. James Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 
until he reached a great age, and he now lies 
in the churchyard there. The Bishop's father 
was, during his son's boyhood, a man of exten- 
sive business, and great public esteem. After- 
ward he lived in retirement. Many people in 
Omaha remember him, a genial, hearty, good 
old man. He died here several years ago. 
7 



8 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

The Bishop's academic education was re- 
ceived at Pennsylvania College in the town of 
his birth, where he was graduated B.A., in 
1844. Shortly afterward, he became tutor at 
the College of St. James, in Hagerstown, 
Maryland. The head of this interesting insti- 
tution was the Rev. Dr. Kerfoot, afterward 
Bishop of Pittsburgh. While there, young 
Clarkson studied theology, under Dr. Kerfoot, 
and was ordained Deacon, June 18, 1848. 

In some of its circumstances, his early life 
was most happy. Far beyond what falls to 
the lot of most young persons, he enjoyed the 
advantage of the love and care and association 
of very rare men. While at the College of St. 
James he learned to love, and was in turn 
greatly loved by, the Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, 
whose memory still lives and will always live 
in St. Luke's hospital, New York, which he 
founded, and in the lines of the hymn, "I 
would not live alway," which he wrote. This 
eminent divine was the immediate successor 
of the elder Dr. Clarkson, as rector of the 
Church in Lancaster, and this strongly at- 
tached him to the young man, who through 
life was as a son to him. Dr. Bowman, also 
rector of the same Church and afterward 
Bishop of Pennsylvania, was his uncle. For 
his piety, learning and great labor, his name is 
a treasure in the Church to this day. He gave 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 

his kinsman his solicitous affection and assist- 
ance. Dr. Kerfoot lavished upon him the vast 
stores of his great learning, and made known 
to him not only the beauty of godliness, but 
the power and joy of exquisite literary graces. 
His cousins — the Passmores — were nearly of 
his age, and their poetic and highly spiritual 
natures quickened his own. And there were 
others who cannot here be named. And so it 
was, that, by inheritance and education, he was 
made for such a life as now on earth is ended. 
While at Hagerstown, in 1849, he won the 
hand of a daughter of the house of McPherson 
— a great name in that neighborhood — and 
ever since, she has shed on his pathway the 
radiance of a wife's affection and the help of a 
wife's care. On the day of their marriage, 
before the sounds of festivity were over, the 
young couple took up their long and weary 
way to Chicago; he to be the rector of St. 
James Church, and both to be to their death, 
most lovingly cherished in the affections of 
the people there. It was a great venture. 
With little knowledge of men, and no experi- 
ence in affairs, they came to the new, raw, 
western City. Almost children, they were to 
be leaders of an aggressive and vigorous man- 
hood, that was impatient of weakness and 
heedless of failures. But they proved them- 
selves worthy son and daughter of their great 



IO BISHOP CLARKSON. 

inheritance. Hardly were they settled in 
their new home, before the cholera came to 
mercilessly scourge the City. Others in the 
sacred office fled before the terrors of the 
plague; they were steadfast through the whole 
period of its ravages. Day and night, the 
young deacon held his way among the stricken; 
nursing the sick, helping the poor, holding up 
the hearts of the afflicted, holding the Cross 
before the eyes of the dying, and burying the 
forsaken dead. Stricken down himself, he 
conquered the disease by his indomitable spirit; 
and weak and weary as he was, he went out 
again to the utter misery all about, never stop- 
ping to rest, never heeding the cries of fear. 
The records of Christian heroism tell no more 
affecting tale of devotion and self-sacrifice. 
He came out of the ordeal a conqueror, for he 
had conquered a City. Known of all for what 
he had been in the hour of agony and trial, 
ever afterward men as he passed among them 
paid him a loving, almost worshipful homage. 
He was ordained priest January 5, 185 1. 
Seventeen years he lived among that people. 
He built a great Church, in its beauty surpass- 
ing all others in the City. He gathered a great 
congregation from all conditions of men. He 
set on foot, and nursed, and made secure many 
charities. Every young man coming there, of 
whom he could hear, was sought out and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. II 

helped, and encouraged, and put in the good 
way. Every poor, or sick, or afflicted, or 
friendless person found a hand stretched out, a 
heart open wide for him ; and the more he 
needed of any sort of help, the more was 
pressed upon him. The whole was a life of 
arduous work; a joy and a blessing to every- 
one. The friendships then formed still live, 
their strength unrelaxed, and the gratitude 
to-day all it was when the service was rendered. 
And now the City of his first love mourns 
with the City where he rests forever. 

In 1857 he received his Doctorate in Divinity 
from his alma mater and also from Racine 
College. And there, in that young school he 
had his place. It was he who named the 
sainted DeKoven for its head, and by much 
persuasion secured the appointment. And his 
unswerving devotion and unremitting service 
did much to make the College the Rugby of 
America. In 1872, our own University honored 
itself by conferring upon him the very first of 
its degrees of Doctor of Laws. 

Eighteen years ago the General Convention 
of the Church elected him Missionary Bishop 
of Nebraska and Dakota. On the 15th of 
November, 1865, he was consecrated in his 
own Church. The services of that occasion 
are a memory still. The Rt. Rev. John Henry 
Hopkins, the presiding Bishop of the Church, 



12 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

was consecrator, assisted by Bishops Kemper, 
McCoskrey, Lee, Whipple and Talbot. In 1 868, 
Nebraska was erected into a Diocese, and he 
was unanimously elected its first Bishop. He 
retained jurisdiction in Dakota for some years, 
when the western part of that territory was 
detached and made a separate district with a 
Bishop of its own. Last fall he was, at his 
own request, relieved of his missionary juris- 
diction, the work having outgrown his strength. 
And he now looked forward to years of labor 
to be given wholly to Nebraska. 

He repeated in his higher office of Bishop 
his work as Priest. He came again to a 
new, raw land, whose prairies stretched out a 
vast waste, with a few little towns, where little 
Churches had been built, and a sparse and poor 
population. It was as untoward a prospect as 
a Christian Bishop ever looked upon. But he 
was no more dismayed than when he first left 
the home of his fathers. With what heedless- 
ness of self; with what buoyancy of spirit; with 
what resolute patience, despite great discour- 
agements; with what abundant, trying, ex- 
hausting labors he has gone on and carried on 
the work none know, or ever will know, who 
were not admitted to his inmost heart. He 
has built fifty churches. He has carried to 
success his two schools. He has been the head 
and moving spirit, and source of strength, to 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 1 3 

all the work of his Church. He has not kept 
himself to the places of ease, nor even to his 
own home ; but has gone up and down all the 
country, preaching in school houses, as well as 
Churches, to a few disciples wherever they 
could be gathered. No journey has been too 
long or too hard for him to travel, in all sea- 
sons, so that he could reach, and help, and en- 
courage any servant of the Lord. He has 
preached such sermons that men, who cared 
little for such things, have said they never 
heard him, but they longed to be better ; and 
he has taught multitudes the very rudiments 
of our divine religion. 

His work has been before our eyes, although 
we have not seen it all. The poor missionary 
has cried to him in his utter poverty; the young 
man has craved his aid; the afflicted and sorely 
sinning have sought his counsel and comfort. 
And so it is that his true work, his great work, 
has been abundant and distressing, where men 
could have no thought of it. And its fruits are 
on every hand. They are the love, that now 
makes so many men and women he has helped 
to a better life, rise up and called him blessed. 

His last great works are in our midst. The 
Child's Hospital was his child, and he loved it 
with a father's love. That is one. But the 
joy of his last days was the Cathedral. He 
toiled and was full of anxious fears for it. 



14 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

There was no detail of the work he did not 
know, and follow, and care for. And when it 
was completed and he looked upon its fair 
beauty, and came to consecrate it on that 
lovely November day, with his brethren of the 
Episcopate about him, and his clergy around 
him, and amidst a great concourse of his peo- 
ple, he rejoiced with a great joy. His last act 
there he entered into with his best delight — 
the marriage of the daughter of the one of his 
laymen he most loved. And now, after that, 
comes the end in the holy precincts. While 
yet in health, he spoke again and again of his 
wish to be laid beneath the shadow of his 
Cathedral, and even pointed out the spot. 
And when he saw the time was coming fast, 
he repeated his request that there he should 
be laid. The solemn promise then was given 
him, and he rested on it. — Omaha Herald^ 
March it. 



THE LAST RITES. 



ON the morning of the 13th of March, Holy 
Communion was celebrated at the Ca- 
thedral at 11 o'clock; Bishop Vail, of Kansas, 
being celebrant, Bishop Hare of Southern Da- 
kota, epistoler, Bishop McLaren, of Chicago, 
gospeler, Bishop Spaulding, of Colorado, read- 
ing the exhortation, Bishop Walker, of North- 
ern Dakota, saying the Post Communion. 

A large number of communicants partic- 
ipated, the Cathedral being filled, and a gener- 
ous offering was given for aged and infirm 
clergy. 

The order of music was this: 

Processional — " The Church's One Foundation." 

" Kyrie Eleison." >___.._._. Gounod 

"Gloria Tibi." _.._.______ Gounod 

"Sanctus." _ . _ Berthold Tours 

Hymn — " Bread of the World, in Mercy Broken. 

" Gloria in Excelsis." __ Old Chant 

Recessional — " The Strife is o'er, the Battle Won." 

The altar cloth and the pall were the usual 
ones for Lent. The throne was covered with 
black cloth, hanging from the pinnacles of the 
canopy to the floor. 

The funeral procession moved from the res- 
is 



l6 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

idence " Overlook," at I o'clock in the order 
given: 

The Mayor and City officers. 

The vestries of Churches not of Omaha. 

The vestry of St. Barnabas. 

The vestry of St. Mark's. 

The vestry of the Cathedral. 

The lay members of the chapter. 

The visiting clergy, including delegations 
from the dioceses of Minnesota, Chicago, 
Quincy, Missouri, Kansas, North Dakota, South 
Dakota and Iowa. 

The Diocesan clergy. 

The Cathedral clergy. 

The body was borne on the shoulders of 
eight strong men, most of whom had worked 
on the Cathedral, while the others had been 
in the service of the Bishop. The casket of 
cedar wood, covered with black cloth, was 
draped with a large pall of royal purple, hav- 
ing through its centre a white cross. 

The pall bearers were: 
The Rev. Mr. Shaw, The Rev. Dr. McNamara, 
Mr. C. W. Mead, Mr. H. G. Clark, 
Mr. E. Wakely, Mr. J. M. Woolworth, 

The Rev. Dr. Oliver, The Rev. Dr. Goodale. 

Following them were the gentlemen of the 
family ; (the ladies being in carriages), Bishops 
Vail of Kansas, Spaulding of Colorado, Hare 
of South Dakota, Walker of North Dakota, 



THE LAST RITES. 17 

McLaren of Chicago, Brewer of Montana, 
Brown of Fond du Lac, and Robertson of Mis- 
souri, and distinguished gentlemen from abroad 
and of Omaha. 

All places of business and the public schools 
were closed ; and as the procession passed to 
the Cathedral, the streets were thronged with 
people, who reverently uncovered. 

At the door of the Cathedral, the procession 
opened, and the body of the deceased prelate 
was carried into the porch, followed by the 
family and friends. 

His Excellency the Governor and other state 
officers, the General commanding the De- 
partment and his staff, the Judges and offi- 
cers of the Federal and State courts, and the 
ministers of other denominations, occupied 
seats specially assigned to them. 

The Bishops, having passed through the 
chapel and robing room, came down the aisle 
to the inner door of the Cathedral, and then 
returned, followed by the body, borne by the 
clerical and lay pall bearers. Then came the 
family and friends, and those who were in the 
procession from the house, in inverse order, 
the Rt. Rev. Dr. Walker reading the sentences. 

The burial chant was sung by the choir. 

The Rt. Rev. Dr. McLaren read the lesson. 
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Hare said the prayers. The 
hymn, "Jerusalem, My Happy Home," was 



1 8 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

sung by the choir, when the Bishops passed 
down the aisle, followed by the clerical and 
lay bearers, carrying the body, and by the 
family and friends, and after them the clergy, 
the organ playing the Dead March in "Saul." 

The hymn "Jerusalem the Golden" was 
sung while the body was lowered into the 
grave. 

The Right Rev. Dr. Spaulding said the sen- 
tences. The Rev. Dr. McNamara said the 
committal to the ground, the Rev. Dr. Bat- 
terson casting in the earth. The Right Rev. 
Dr. Brown said the sentence after the commit- 
tal, and the Right Rev. Dr. Robertson said the 
concluding prayers. The hymn "O, Paradise, 
O, Paradise!" concluded the services. 

The hymns were of the Bishop's own selec- 
tion. 

A great concourse was assembled in the Ca- 
thedral yard, and before the grave was filled, 
multitudes looked down upon the heavy stone 
strewn with flowers. 

The tomb is of hard brick laid in Portland 
cement. A heavy stone is embedded in the 
walls just above the casket. The walls carried 
to the surface of the ground are covered again 
by another thick stone, which will form the 
foundation of the monument. 

The resting place is in a spot selected by the 
Bishop for the purpose, and south of the south 



THE LAST RITES. 19 

transept of the Cathedral. The place will be 
marked by a horizontal monument and a cross, 
like those at the graves of the Christian poet, 
Keble, and of the Rev. Dr. De Koven, at Ra- 
cine College ; and it will be kept as a sacred 
spot, to which multitudes will resort to pay 
the tributes of a loving memory to their be- 
loved Bishop. 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES 

AT THE CATHEDRAL ON THE SUNDAY FOLLOWING 
THE BURIAL. 

MORNING prayer having been said at 
eight o'clock, at eleven o'clock, after the 
Litany said by the Rev. Canon Paterson, Holy 
Communion was celebrated, Bishop Hare be- 
ing the celebrant and gospeler, and Bishop 
Walker being the epistoler. Then followed 

BISHOP HARE'S SERMON. 

" Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple 
of my God." Rev. 3:12. 

I have come here this morning in response 
to a request which I could not refuse, and 
under the government of the conviction that 
each one of us ought to do what he can, to con- 
vert the event, under the shadow of which we 
stand, into a dispensation in the light of which 
we will walk. 

I am asked to present some of the promi- 
nent traits of the father and friend we have 
lost. But how shall I perform the duty? Dare 
I break the silence, when my doing so will 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 21 

make you realize that from this pulpit will 
come to you no more that strangely sympa- 
thetic voice, which made the chords of your 
inmost souls to vibrate, and drew your moral 
being in its train, as the woods followed the 
golden lyre of Orpheus? How shall I describe 
a man, whose characteristic quality was an in- 
describable fascination. A penetrative mag- 
netism like the subtile power which thrills a 
mother's care-worn frame when her little child, 
stepping to her bedside, lays its soft hand upon 
her aching forehead. How shall I occupy the 
place where has been wont to stand one 
whom even those who doubt the reality and 
sincerity of preachers believed to be genuine, 
and who called forth from those who knew him 
best, the salute, "Behold an Israelite indeed, 
in whom is no guile." How shall I deport my- 
self with fitting humility, as I recall to your 
memories a man, who, while he filled so large 
a place, and was resorted to for counsel and 
guidance by so many, and touched so large a 
portion of the community at so many of their 
springs of action, never so much as for a mo- 
ment dreamed that he was great in any way, 
but moved about among you as simply and un- 
pretendingly, and as free from self-conscious- 
ness as a child. O for more of that spon- 
taneous kindness of heart of his, beside which 
punctilious courtesy seems so turgid and so 



22 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

hollow! O for more of that love of man, which 
reveals to the preacher the deepest sources of 
feeling in the human heart, the intuitive knowl- 
edge and tact of love, a thousand times better 
than the most consummate art; the artless 
statements of a good man's lips, which make 
the most secretive feel that he is in the pres- 
ence of a man, who tells him all the things that 
ever he did ; and dismissing the congregation 
without having aroused resentment, repeats 
the scene, of which we are told in the Gospel, 
where the hearers, being convicted by their 
own conscience, "went out one by one, begin- 
ning at the eldest, even unto the last." 

My text to-day is, "Him that overcometh, 
will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.'' 
I have chosen it, first, because the words re- 
call a scene which it is well to contemplate, 
when we are disconcerted and staggering un- 
der an inscrutable blow; secondly, because 
they bring before us the work and the reward 
of a faithful Bishop, like him whom you have 
lost, a steadfast chief pastor, who flourished as 
the first century of the Church's history was 
drawing to a close. 

As our many congregations and their sev- 
eral pastors are now united under one chief 
pastor, who is responsible to God for them, 
and who is the messenger or angel (the word 
angel means messenger) of God to them, so 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 23 

it was in the days when St. John the Divine 
was favored with the symbolic vision, which 
occupies the first few chapters of the Book of 
Revelation. 

A number of these clustered congregations, 
dioceses as we should call them, were repre- 
sented to the Apostle in his vision by golden 
candlesticks. Their angels (or bishops, as we 
should say) were represented by stars. The 
great Head of the Church was seen in a figure 
like unto the Son of Man; His head and His 
hair were white like wool, as white as snow; 
His voice was as the sound of many waters ; and 
His countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
strength. The ever-present oversight and 
ministry, which the Lord vouchsafes His 
Church, was symbolized by the position of the 
radiant figure. He was represented as standing 
in the midst of the golden candlesticks, while 
His ability to direct, and rule, and sustain His 
chief pastors, was indicated by His holding the 
stars, the emblem of them, in His right hand. 
Surely this is, as I said, a scene which it is 
well to contemplate, when we are disconcerted 
by a staggering blow. 

To each of the chief pastors, the Lord sent by 
his servant John a message. The text is part 
of one of these messages, and it naturally came 
to my mind, as I thought of the messenger of 
God to you, whose departure we deplore. 



24 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

"These things saith He that is holy, He that 
is true, He that hath the key of David, He that 
openeth and no man shutteth, He that shutteth 
and no man openeth. I know thy works. Be- 
hold I have set before thee an open door, and 
no man can shut it; for thou hast little strength 
[small were His resources in men and means], 
and hast kept my word and hast not denied 
my name. * * * Hold that fast which 
thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him 
that overcometh will I make a pillar in the 
temple of my God." 

These words present the picture of a faithful 
Bishop, who though he has little strength, will 
use that little strength to the utmost, and 
therefore will welcome as a rich earthly reward 
the setting before him of an open door, i.e. 
full opportunity for Christian activity. It is 
the portrait of a chief Pastor, firm and stead- 
fast, who has kept God's word. And what 
should be especially noticed is, that it is im- 
plied, that back of the fidelity of this servant 
with his little strength, is the persistent idea 
of Him, whose countenance shineth as the sun 
shineth in his strength. Back of his resolve is 
the determination of the Absolute Disposer of 
all events, of Him that openeth and no man 
shutteth. The faithful chief pastor has the 
divine approval. " Thou hast kept My word." 
Continue doing so. "Hold fast that which 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 25 

thou hast." Thy effort shall not be in vain — 
that which thou hast tried to be, thou shalt be. 
Thou hast shown faithfulness and steadiness 
and firmness, pillar-like virtues, in time here 
upon the earth, and a pillar I will make thee 
forever in my sanctuary above. "Him that 
overcometh, will I make a pillar in the temple 
of my God." The good chief Pastor who has 
tried to be a certain kind of man on earth, 
shall be rewarded, not by being made, in a 
higher world, some other thing (as when, in- 
congruously, among us men, a man who has 
proved himself a good soldier, instead of being 
made an officer, is made a judge), but what he 
shall be shall correspond with what he has 
been; there shall be unbroken continuity; the 
future shall be the fruit of the present; the 
pillar-like servant shall be a pillar forever, a 
thing of ornament and of use, for beauty and 
for support, in that City which shall be all 
temple, because the presence of the Almighty 
shall penetrate it through and through. I think 
we may justly transfer these ideas from the 
early Bishop, to the Bishop whom we have 
known so well; your steadfast, pillar-like 
Bishop, who overcame, and who, having over- 
come, has it as his reward to be now and to be 
forever gloriously in a higher sphere, what he 
was in inferior degree here below, a pillar in 
the temple of his God. 



26 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

I am aware that we cannot associate the idea 
of overcoming with Bishop Clarkson's name, 
if our notion of conquest involves the notion 
of altercation. He shrank from all strife and 
contests, and was eminently a man of peace. 
But there is another mode of overcoming — the 
overcoming of the rising tide, which makes its 
way, not by dashing sorties, but by gradual 
advances ; which overcomes obstacles, not by 
attacking, but by encircling them; which does 
not blast the opposing rock with loud explo- 
sions, but bathes it and dissolves it and flows 
over it with its all-pervading waters. So it was 
that our friend overcame. "The bruised reed 
he did not break." Like his Master, "he did 
not strive nor cry, nor cause his voice to be 
heard in the street." But gentle as was his 
nature, and quiet as were his methods, his 
whole life was one overcoming. 

He was, we are told, as a boy, just what 
those of us who knew him only as a man 
would have inferred — full of life and spirits, 
susceptible to every impression from without, 
endowed with a keen sense of the ludicrous, 
hungry for all sorts of fun, at the bottom of 
every piece of mischief that was current, but 
clever enough never to be caught. Such a 
nature is open at a hundred points to temp- 
tation, and many boys of such temperament 
give full rein to their inclinations, and fling all 






THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 2J 

scruples to the winds. This Robert Harper 
Clarkson never did. He never cut the cable 
that anchored him to the rock of principle. 
He was frolicsome but never persistently un- 
dutiful; a tease, but never cruel; mischievous, 
but never bad. The body which was laid last 
Thursday beneath the shadow of this sacred 
building was never stained by impurity or 
other excess. At about sixteen, the first crisis 
in his moral and religious life came, and under 
the earnest preaching of the Gospel, he was 
awakened to the seriousness of life, and the 
sacredness of the claims of his Redeemer. He 
openly confessed His name, and soon began to 
consider whether it was not his duty to devote 
his life to his Master's special service in the 
ministry. This was his first overcoming, the 
overcoming of his boyish thoughtlessness. 

Though the early religious teachings which 
he received were those of our own Church, to 
which his parents belonged, there was no 
Episcopal Church in the town where his par- 
ents lived ; and the services at which young 
Clarkson was led to make his choice were 
those of another religious body. And perhaps 
it is to this fact that we are in a degree to trace 
that conquest of which I would next speak, 
viz.: his conquest over the disposition to sec- 
tarian animosity, and the narrowness which 
can discover no good outside one's own Church. 



28 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Of that Church he took high views. He be- 
lieved that it was what the Redeemer meant 
His Church to be; a body which can trace its 
lineage back in unbroken succession through 
a line of Bishops to the Apostles, and through 
them to the body of the Incarnate Head of 
the Church Himself as He breathed upon the 
Apostles, and said, "As my Father hath sent 
me, even so send I you." He held that the 
claims of his own branch of the Church were 
sacred, altogether peculiar, preeminent, unique, 
and, in a sense, exclusive. He was glad therefore 
when the most successful of non-Episcopal 
ministers discarded the ordination under which 
they had felt justified in ministering, and 
sought regular orders in the Church. He saw 
and mourned the wastefulness of divisions 
among Christians, and believed that the result 
of them was the starvation of the ministry in 
mind and pocket, and the degradation of the 
Church. He was weary of the petty rivalries 
of many congregations of different denomina- 
tions in our small towns. But who was so 
free as he from petty jealousy and narrowness ? 
Who so glad to see the good that ministers of 
other bodies accomplished ? Who so appreci- 
ative of their ability, zeal and piety ? He met 
them without a trace of ofrishness and associ- 
ated with them without a particle of assump- 
tion. He was eager to learn of their methods 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 29 

and opinions, and glad to know that they 
thought him worthy of their respect and regard. 
From his bed of sickness he sent a message 
first by the telephone, and then by a special 
messenger to a non-Episcopal minister in the 
city, asking the prayers of himself and his 
people. "Some may criticise" he said "a 
Bishop's asking the prayers of persons outside 
his own Church; but no matter. I value the 
prayers of all good men." While on a visit, 
once, to one of the towns of the state, he 
learned that an effort was being made to build 
a house for an aged Methodist minister, and at 
once inclosed a cheque for ten dollars, with 
the expression of his pleasure that there was 
a prospect that the good man would have a 
roof over his head in his old age. And since 
his death, a touching letter has come from a 
Baptist minister residing now in Michigan, 
telling of the cheer which had been brought to 
his heart, when he was about to leave Nebraska 
for a strange field of labor, by receiving from 
the Bishop, whom he had frequently met in 
travelling, a note expressing his regret that he 
was about to leave the state, and wishing him 
God speed in his new sphere. There was noth- 
ing about your Bishop which you could measure 
in a bushel. He was too large-hearted to be 
entirely contained even within the bounds of 
our own comprehensive Church. 



30 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Next I would point out the indomitable per- 
severance with which the Bishop pursued the 
duties of his office, and overcame the peculiar 
discouragements of a Bishop's work. These 
discouragements arise largely from the unreas- 
onable expectations of ministers, the unreason- 
able expectations of congregations, and the 
unreasonable expectations of the general 
Church. 

I do not speak of this aspect of a Missionary 
Bishop's life, as though a Missionary Bishop's 
lot were harder than that of any other minis- 
ter, or than that of any other man. Much less 
would I imply that Bishop Clarkson thought 
it hard. I do not think it is. Increasingly, 
there grows the wonder that the Head of the 
Church should bestow such a vocation on such 
as we are. With abashed gratitude the heart 
exclaims, "On me, who am less than the least 
of all saints, is this favor bestowed, that I 
should preach among the Gentiles the un- 
searchable riches of Christ." Nor would I im- 
ply that Bishop Clarkson did not enjoy from 
his clergy, his people, and his Church at large, 
confidence in his ability, love for his character, 
and gratitude for what he had done. I think 
he enjoyed them to a remarkable degree. But 
all life has its trials — I wish to point out a 
trial which is specifically a Bishop's, and so I 
speak of the unreasonable expectations of the 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 3 1 

clergy, the congregations and the general 
Church. Every man of tender heart wants 
those whom he loves to expect great things of 
him. Every man of spirit will try to meet 
these expectations. But no man can fulfil 
them. Ceaselessly they cry "Give, give," and 
like death and the grave they are never full. 
They make a Missionary Bishop like a mili- 
tary culprit, condemned to wear the ball and 
chain ; and if when the drag becomes unendur- 
able at home, the Missionary Bishop seeks re- 
lief by going to the East, he finds that the ball 
and chain have been removed from one ankle 
only to be fastened round the other. In his 
own diocese he feels dragging on him the ques- 
tions; Why does not the Bishop stand up for 
his clergy and protect them from the incon- 
siderate treatment of the laity? Why does not 
he secure for his congregations more eloquent 
preachers? While away from his diocese, at 
the Church's great centres, the questions pur- 
sue him: If he is cautious, why does he let 
this gift and that lie so long idle? If he puts 
the money in some enterprise which does not 
meet the Church's expectations, then why did 
he not show more forecast? Will his field 
never become self-supporting, and will he 
never cease to solicit the Church's aid? A man 
is more than human if he does not sadden after 
many years' experience like this. Bishop 



32 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Clarkson did sadden. He began to feel that 
his episcopate had been a failure. He feared 
that his influence was waning, that his hold on 
the general church was gone. His nearest 
friends remarked a growing tendency to de- 
spondency. But though he might have turned 
on the Church with irritation and vexation, 
and demanded — "Was his field self-sought? 
Who had dragged him from his happy parish 
home in Chicago? Who gave annually as 
much to his mission field as he did?" — he was 
never irritated, never vexed, only increasingly 
sad; but he was never stranded on these bars 
of depression. The resistless tide of his hope- 
fulness, and love, and sense of duty would 
rise and float him over them. He rallied him- 
self and drove his ship ahead; took up his 
work afresh. He would try to dismiss the 
unreasonable expectations of vacant stations 
with a smile, " Oh I'll send you the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury." He would start off to 
cheer some distant and struggling brother, 
and while he really went to help him bear his 
burden, write him in his playful way that he 
" liked to be in good company and therefore 
would be with him next Sunday." But wher- 
ever he went, he was like a mother-bird re- 
turning to its nest, and the nest was always 
full of hungry birds. Fed they must be. He 
had just been to the East, and found that the 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 33 

breasts of his mother, The Church, were dry; 
and so he overtaxed himself and fed them, like 
the bird in the legend, with the life blood from 
his own bosom. It was pathetic as he lay dy- 
ing to find that the Child's Hospital and the 
feeble stations of his diocese were upon his 
anxious heart, and hear him ask, "will this 
(his approaching death) affect the Hospital ? 
Will the contributions fall off?" and to catch 
the names of his missions, amid incoherent 
sentences half uttered, "Red Cloud," "Tecum- 
seh." 

I would remark now another conquest. The 
tendency of a zealous minister is to become 
absorbed in the duties of his office, and to pur- 
sue them to the neglect of all other duties. 
Many an earnest minister is a neglectful hus- 
band ; many a faithful pastor is a bad father; 
many a good minister's relatives wish, and 
with reason, that he were as kind and attentive 
in the home circle, as he is in his parish. 
Bishop Clarkson might easily have fallen into 
this error, for no man ever flung himself with 
more complete self abandonment than he, into 
the interests of all the flock committed to his 
charge. He was wrapped up not only in their 
ecclesiastical and spiritual concerns, but in all 
the details of their personal lives, as I never 
knew man to be; in their engagements, mar- 
riages, births, business ventures, bereavements. 
3 



34 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

He rejoiced with them that did rejoice, and 
wept with them that wept, all over the diocese; 
and not only so, but among the people whose 
pastor he had been in Chicago, twenty years 
ago. So cordial a treat was his sympathy, that 
it was as if he was himself in each engagement, 
lover over again; in each marriage, groom 
over again; in each birth, happy young father 
over again. From his sick bed three days be- 
fore his death, he telephoned his congratula- 
tions and best love to a young mother upon 
the birth of a daughter, asked that oranges 
might be sent to a little lamplighter who had 
broken his leg, and charged that one of the 
clergy should be sure to search out a sick man, 
almost a total stranger to him, of whose ill- 
ness he had read in the newspaper, and who, 
he feared, might be friendless. But this ten- 
der concern for those who were bound to him 
by reason of his office never drew him from 
those who were united to him by the ties of 
nature. The moment he could break away 
from the ties of official duty, he made for his 
home, like a carrier pigeon set free. To reach 
it he would often take the caboose on a freight 
train on Sunday at midnight, rather than wait 
for the regular passenger train the next morn- 
ing. Arrived at home, he was radiant with 
delight. Love exhaled from his soul, like per- 
fume from a flower, toward every member 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 35 

of his family. And ere death clouded his fac- 
ulties, he called them all to his bedside, spoke 
to each one an appropriate parting word, and 
poured forth his soul for each one before the 
Mercy Seat in passionate and specific suppli- 
cation. 

There is another evil into which a minister 
is apt to fall, which Bishop Clarkson escaped, 
and I touch upon it in showing another point 
in which he overcame. It is the hardness 
which comes from doing sacred things fre- 
quently, merely as a part of one's office. 
Formal prayer takes the place of real prayer. 
The anointing of the Holy One, which keeps 
the soul soft and pliable, is no longer enjoyed, 
and the man becomes like a leathern bottle in 
the smoke, dry, and stiff, and angular, and 
hard. His instructions are given mechanically. 
The service is read hastily with a sort of me- 
tallic ring, or drowsily with a sort of wooden 
dulness. There are ministers of whom young 
men say, ; 'We have nothing in common with 
them. They do not understand us." These 
are the clergymen who make the mothers in 
the parish wish, for the children's sake, that 
they had a young minister. But they do not 
mean young in years, but in heart. Bishop 
Clarkson was always young in heart; never 
angular; never dry; never formal or mechani- 
cal. His religion was always natural and free. 



36 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

No young man ever felt that he did not under- 
stand him. If he had been a parish priest the 
last year of his life, no mother would ever 
have wished, for the children's sake, that they 
had a younger man. There was always unc- 
tion about him. When communing with one 
and another of his clergy, he would say with 
great tenderness and meaning, "I fear we do 
not pray enough — we do not pray enough 
for our work." And in his last hours he 
was heard to say with deep emotion, "My 
sins, my sins, my Saviour, they take such hold 
on me." 

Another conquest of his was the overcoming 
of his own tender susceptibilities and affections. 
These often come in contact with one's duty, and 
the danger of a nature so kind and affectionate 
as Bishop Clarkson's is, that it will habitually 
listen to the call of the affections, which comes 
to one with voice so much sweeter and gentler 
than the stern voice of duty. He could not 
bear to deny a pathetic entreaty. It was al- 
most impossible for him to disentangle himself 
from the toils of friendship, or unlock the em- 
brace of affection. His friends were all right; 
or, if in error, the error was but a speck, their 
goodness was an expanse. At any rate, he 
loved them, and love covers a multitude of 
sins. And, perhaps, it was in the realm of his 
affections, more than anywhere else in his char- 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 2>7 

acter, that he was near being overcome, instead 
of overcoming-. A severe thing should be 
done. Can he bring himself to do it? He 
ought, in his course of action, to part company 
at this point with his friends. Will he do it? 
He ought to come boldly forward at this junc- 
ture, and take a side. Will he do it? He 
lingered, he wavered, he winced, not for lack 
of courage, but from the dislike of his kind 
heart to give anyone pain, and from his intense 
desire that all should love him. He lingered, 
he wavered, he winced; but once confronted 
with the necessity of choice, once convinced 
that he was called to action, he acted ; he made 
his choice; he made it resolutely; and this res- 
olute choice was the right. When once a 
clergyman was indisposed to obey a canon of 
the Church, and expressed his belief that it 
could not be enforced, and threatened to test 
whether it could be, by disobeying it, the 
Bishop's quick reply was, "As sure as you do, 
you shall have full opportunity to test it, sir." 
And the moral force that was in him, and 
which prevented him from ever so indulging 
his affections as to put him in danger of be- 
coming soft, appeared splendidly, when he 
was called from his beloved parish to become 
a frontier Bishop. The announcement drove 
the blood from his cheek, and left him speech- 
less for minutes. Thus he describes his emo- 



38 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

tions in the sermon in which he announced to 
his parish his decision: "Entirely unexpected, 
without the slightest desire on my part, and 
with scarcely the shadow of a training, the an- 
nouncement of the Church came upon me. 
The very thought of the necessary severing of 
ties, and disturbing of the associations of seven- 
teen years of a happy pastorate, was more 
than I could bear. And whilst I was enduring 
anguish and agitation in the balancing of in- 
clination with duty, such as I pray God I may 
never again experience, I went to one of the 
Bishops, and told him that I could not and would 
not go, and laid before him the reasons for my 
decision, ultimate as I then thought. When I 
told him of my ministry here, commenced in the 
fervor and enthusiasm of youth, and deep- 
rooted in the spiritual services and pastoral 
experiences of so many years, — of my flock 
united in a most remarkable degree, and 
precious to me, every one, without an excep- 
tion, and of my delightful home, filled with 
numberless testimonials of your attachment, — 
and of my beautiful church, every stone of 
which was cemented by my anxieties and my 
prayers, — and of the city with which I had 
grown up, the only dwelling place of my man- 
hood's years, the birth place of my children 
and the sleeping ground of my dead, — I sup- 
posed that this was enough to satisfy any 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 39 

reasonable man that I ought not to be asked to 
go. His only reply, as he laid his hand upon 
my shoulder and looked me calmly in the eye ? 
was: ' Your Master in Heaven left infinitely 
more than this for you. Life is short. The ac- 
count you must give will be strict. Go where 
He has sent you/ What could I say? Shame 
and silence sealed my lips. From that hour 
the more I thought over the matter, and the 
more I prayed over it, and the more I discussed 
it with holy men, who believe that there is a 
God, and that there are such things as duty, 
accountability, necessary self- surrender and 
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the clearer grew 
the whole subject, the more insignificant and 
sinful seemed the thought of personal sacrifice, 
and the more imperative became the demand 
of conscience; and, although I reserved the 
right of final decision until I came home, and 
did not definitely determine until since my re- 
turn, yet every day has settled me firmer in 
the wish best expressed in the lines of the 
text, ' What am I that I could withstand God?'" 

It was a splendid triumph of duty over his 
tenderest affections and deepest love of friends. 
He overcame. 

And lastly, let me speak of his conquest of 
the last enemy. He had a presentiment from 
the first that this sickness was his last, and 
immediately, on being taken ill, began to make 



40 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

preparations for his departure, but it would be 
a great mistake to suppose that his will-power 
gave way, that he died from want of endeavor 
and determination to get well, and that a man 
of stronger will and greater desire to live 
would have recovered. To the last, he was 
master of himself and the situation. To the 
last, he was the director and the comforter of 
all. The physicians marvelled at the clearness 
and vigor with which he read and described 
his symptoms. He wrote daily in his journal, 
for ten days after he was laid upon his bed, 
and one entry reads, "I am feeling better to- 
day. Perhaps I shall yet be up." He kept 
the little details of business well in hand, and 
even was at pains to see that replies to tele- 
grams, inquiring as to his condition, should be 
prepaid. Two days after he was declared by 
his physicians to be dying, he called for the 
daily paper and read the local items. When 
told that he could not live, he argued that he 
"had too much vitality to die yet." He pro- 
posed vigorous treatment, and thought that if 
it was resorted to he might yet recover. 
Five minutes before his death, he calmly and 
collectedly inquired, " Do you see any great 
change?" His self command — his self posses- 
sion, was complete. 

One would have supposed that the approach 
of death to a man so wrapped up as he was, in 



THE MEMORIAL SERVICES. 4I 

wife and children, friends and home, would 
have been attended with peculiar terrors; that 
the loosening of the embrace of love would 
have been accompanied with exhibitions of un- 
controllable anguish. There was nothing of 
the kind. For three weeks he lay in death's 
presence, but its presence did not disturb him 
in the least. It was then that the essential 
characteristic of his religion shone forth in its 
peculiar glory. He had implicit faith in God, 
the unerring, wise, loving, ever faithful Father 
and Redeemer. He was God's dear child. 
Throughout he behaved as a child in the house 
of his father. He did not act as if he felt that 
he was nearing a tremendous juncture and 
must brace himself: he acted as he always 
acted ; was as natural as a child in a garden, 
unconscious of the presence of the asp. He 
was even playful sometimes. He talked of 
his interment without a shudder; of his being 
shrouded in his robes of office without shrink- 
ing ; he had his robes brought to his room, 
and asked that he might be buried in the 
robes in which for eighteen years he had done 
his work; not in his new ones, which might be 
given to another ; chose the hymns to be 
sung at his funeral. 

With sublime composure he said a little be- 
fore his death, " I shall soon be with all the 
dead," and again, " I believe as I preached, I 



42 



BISHOP CLARKSON. 



shall close my eyes on this world and open 
them on a better." He has done so. And 
we, who have known him, are to-day, my 
friends, like men who, as they have gone daily 
to and from their homes, have passed a quarry 
where a huge monolith was being cut out from 
the crude rock, and they have beheld it, day 
by day, fashioned beneath the sculptor's 
hammer and chisel into a nobly proportioned 
and graceful pillar. They have seen, day by 
day, preparations made for its removal. Next 
day they pass by and the column is gone! 
What has become of it? Has all this develop- 
ment of beauty and power had no final pur- 
pose? Is there no permanent place for this 
noble pillar ? 

" These things saith He that is holy, He 
that is true, He that openeth and no man shut- 
teth, He that shutteth and no man openeth. 
Him that overcometh will I make a pil- 
lar IN THE TEMPLE OF MY GOD, AND HE 
SHALL GO NO MORE OUT." 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 



A MEMORIAL Service was held in St. 
James Church, Chicago, Sunday after- 
noon, March 30th, 1884, as follows: 

Jgpmn 189. 

In the name of the FATHER, and of the SON, 
and of the HOLY GHOST. Amen. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith 
the Lord; he that believeth in Me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die." 

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 
He shall stand at the latter day upon the 
earth. And though after my skin worms de- 
stroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : 
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes 
shall behold, and not another." 

"We brought nothing into this world, and it 
is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord 
gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed 
be the Name of the Lord." 



44 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Let us pray. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be 
thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be 
done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this 
day our daily bread. And forgive us our 
trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass 
against us. And lead us not into temptation ; 
But deliver us from evil : For thine is the 
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for 
ever and ever. Amen. 

V. O Lord, open Thou our lips. 

R. And our mouth shall show forth Thy 
praise. 

V. Glory be to the FATHER, and to the SON, 
and to the Holy Ghost. 

R. As it zvas in the beginning, is nozv, and 
ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 

V. Praise ye the Lord. 

R. The Lord 's Name be praised. 

From the orfice for the Burial of the Dead. 
"Lord, let me know my end." 

&i)e iLesson. 

i Thess., iv., 13-18. 

$salm cm,— Be ^totunate. 
^L%z 0Tree&. 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 4$ 

V. The Lord be with you. 
R. And with thy spirit. 

Let us pray. 

V. O Lord, shew Thy mercy upon us. 

R. And grant us Thy salvation. 

V. Enter not into judgment with Thy ser- 
vant, O Lord. 

R. For in Thy sight shall no man living be 
justified. 

V. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. 

R. And let Light perpetual shine upon 
him. 

V. Lord, hear our prayer. 

R. And let our cry come unto Thee. 

O God, whose days are without end, and 
whose mercies cannot be numbered : Make us, 
we beseech Thee, deeply sensible of the short- 
ness and uncertainty of human life ; and let 
Thy Holy Spirit lead us through this vale of 
misery, in holiness and righteousness, all the 
days of our lives : That when we shall have served 
Thee in our generation, we may be gathered 
unto our fathers, having the testimony of a 
good conscience, in the communion of the 
Catholic Church, in the confidence of a certain 
faith ; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, 
and holy hope, in favor with Thee our God, 
and in perfect charity with the world. All 



46 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

which we ask through Jesus Christ Our Lord. 
Amen. 

Almighty God, with Whom do live the spirits 
of those who depart hence in the Lord, and 
with Whom the souls of the faithful, after they 
are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are 
in joy and felicity ; We give Thee hearty 
thanks for the good examples of all those Thy 
servants, who, having finished their course in 
faith, do now rest from their labors. And we 
beseech Thee, that we, with all those who are 
departed in the true faith of Thy holy Name, 
may have our perfect consummation and bliss, 
both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and ever- 
lasting glory ; through Jesus Christ Our Lord. 
Amen. 

We commend unto Thy mercy, O Lord, Thy 
servants which are departed hence with the 
sign of faith, and do now rest in the sleep of 
peace, especially Thy servant, Robert Harper 
Clarkson, Bishop and Doctor. Grant unto 
them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and ever- 
lasting peace ; and that at the day of the gen- 
eral resurrection, we, and all they which be of 
the mystical Bod}- of Thy Son, may together 
be set on His right hand, and receive that 
blessing which He shall then pronounce to all 
who love and fear Thee, saying, " Come, ye 
blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 47 

prepared for you from the beginning of the 
world." Grant this, O merciful Father, for 
Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and 
Advocate. Amen. 

O Almighty God, Who hast knit together 
Thine elect in one communion and fellowship, 
in the mystical Body of Thy Son, Christ our 
Lord ; Grant us grace so to follow Thy blessed 
Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we 
may come to those unspeakable joys, which 
Thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly 
love Thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Almighty God, we bless Thy holy Name for 
all Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith 
and fear, and especially for this Thy servant 
whom we commemorate to-day, whom Thou 
hast delivered from the miseries of this wretch- 
ed world, from the body of death, and from all 
temptation ; and, as we trust, hast brought 

» their souls into sure consolation and rest. 

Give us grace, we beseech Thee, so to follow 
their good examples, that with them we may 
be partakers of Thy heavenly Kingdom, 
through the glorious Resurrection of Thy Son, 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Assist us mercifully, O Lord, in these our 
supplications and prayers, and dispose the way 



48 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

of Thy servants toward the attainment of 
everlasting salvation ; that, among all the 
changes and chances of this mortal life, we 
may ever be defended by Thy most gracious 
and ready help ; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

2 Cor. xiii., 14. 

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy 
Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen. 

Rev. xiv., 13, 

I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto 
me, " Write, From henceforth blessed are the 
dead who die in the Lord : even so, saith the 
Spirit ; for they rest from their labors." 

DR. VIBBERT'S REMARKS. 

The Rev. Dr. Vibbert, Rector of the church, 
said : We are met together this afternoon, as 
friends and lovers of the late Bishop Clarkson, 
to do honor to the memory of one who for 
seventeen years was the Rector of this Parish, 
and under whom it received that shape and 
impetus which placed it in the front rank of 
the parishes of the Northwest; and also to put 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 49 

upon record our estimate of his services to the 
Church and the community in which he lived 
and worked for so many years. 

Of his work here I can only speak from 
hearsay; but many things have been told me 
by those who knew him best that enable me to 
discover those traits of his character that con- 
tributed to his success as a parish priest, and 
endeared him to the hearts of his parishioners 
and fellow citizens. 

The first time I ever met him was in the 
Berkeley Divinity School Chapel, Conn., where 
he was making an appeal for his mission work 
in Nebraska ; and I well remember how much 
I was impressed with the earnestness and sim- 
plicity of his words. I remember how in his 
speaking of the zeal of S. Francis Xavier, he 
seemed to be witnessing to the sacred enthusi- 
asm which fired his own heart and nerved him 
to the self-sacrificing work of his own mission- 
ary labors. And when I have said to his old 
parishioners : "Tell me what sort of a man Dr. 
Clarkson was," the first reply I invariably re- 
ceived was, "He was a man of remarkable 
simplicity of character." He was perfectly 
natural in his actions and in his speech. There 
seemed to be an utter absence of self-con- 
sciousness ; and when he spoke he appeared to 
be lost in the importance of his subject, and 



50 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

when he acted he was thinking of others and 
interested in their welfare. 

And this interest in others' welfare testified 
to his sympathetic nature. Always ready to 
"rejoice with them that do rejoice and to weep 
with them that weep," he was a welcome friend 
at the marriage feast or at the bedside of 
the sick and suffering. He entered with pleas- 
ure into all the innocent amusements of social 
life, and brought comfort and cheer to those 
who needed consolation in hours of darkness 
and desolation. His special friends were the 
poor, the humble, the sick and the suffering. 
For them he was always poor himself. And 
when he left us, the poor felt that they had lost 
their best friend. And when the scourge of 
cholera came, and others in the sacred office 
fled at its dread approach, the young deacon 
continued fearless at his post, nursing the sick, 
shriving the dying and burying the dead. 
Stricken down himself, he conquered by God's 
grace and his indomitable will ; and, weak as he 
was, he went at his heroic work again, thus 
endearing himself more and more to the hearts 
of those among whom he so bravely ministered. 
It was the same sympathetic nature that made 
the children so fond of him. By his simplicity 
and playfulness, as well as by his special fond- 
ness for the little ones, he easily won their 
love. A friend tells me of his going through 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 5 1 

the Sunday school, calling each child by name, 
having- some pleasant word to say to each 
one, rumpling up the hair of this boy and 
that, as he passed smiling along the aisle, or 
taking some child by the hand, making some 
remark that was sure to stimulate his interest 
in the work, and make him love the good 
pastor more devotedly. No wonder that the 
children felt that he loved them and sympa- 
thized with them ! No wonder that they were 
warmly attached to him ! 

The zeal and enthusiasm of his nature at 
once began to stimulate the efforts of his 
parishioners, and the Parish soon felt the influ- 
ence of his energy and devotion. 

Additional accommodations were shortly 
needed for the increasing congregations that 
he gathered from all sorts and conditions of 
men. The little church at Cass and Illinois 
streets soon proved quite inadequate for the 
number of people that frequented the services, 
and a new and larger edifice was demanded. 
The lot on which our present church stands 
was purchased, and the corner-stone of the 
beautiful church (which was destroyed in the 
great fire) was laid in the spring of 1856, the 
first service being held in December, 1857; and 
although there was upon the church the large 
debt of $30,000, yet by the energy and tact of 
Dr. Clarkson the whole sum was raised a few 



52 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

years later, and placed upon the altar on 
Easter-day. The history of the parish under 
his Rectorship, we are told, was one of great 
unity and of increasing prosperity. 

Of his broad Catholic spirit that manifested 
itself in his sympathy and labors in all good 
works in the city as well as in the Church, of 
his patriotism during the years of civil strife, 
of his care for the soldiers, and of his lively 
interest in the institutions of this city, others 
can bear ample testimony. With quick, keen 
sympathy, so thoroughly alive to everything 
that went on around him, he threw himself 
into all worthy plans for material growth and 
progress. He loved Chicago, and he was 
proud of it. There are doubtless many in this 
congregation this afternoon, gathered as it is 
from all quarters of the city, who can testify 
to the enthusiasm and energy that he brought 
to bear upon the advancement of this Capital 
of the West, and to the value of the influence 
which he exerted upon it. 

I should not call his life here an eventful 
life ; but it was (what is better) a life of the 
faithful performance of duty in the ordinary 
lines that God laid out for him. We remember 
him here as a man distinguished for goodness, 
as one who made men better, who raised them 
to a higher plane of thought, and made society 
purer and nobler. Simple in his manners, sym- 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 53 

pathetic in his affections, impassionate in his 
dealings, broad and catholic in his spirit, 
zealous in his work, practical in his judgment, 
charitable and tolerant toward all, he was a 
patriotic citizen, a loving friend, a thorough 
gentleman, a faithful pastor, a good man. 

His monument here is in the hearts of his 
people, in the lasting friendships that death 
cannot sever, in the noble parish in which his 
influence still lives, in the truths he taught, the 
example he set, the good that he did. 

And in offering this tribute to the memory of 
Robert Harper Clarkson, I am sure I express 
the sentiments of many in the congregation 
who rise up and call him blessed. Our best 
tribute will be in leading the life that he taught 
us and showed us how to live. 



DR. LOCKE'S REMARKS. 

The Rev. Dr. Locke, Rector of Grace Church 
said: I suppose that if we could see collected 
in one vast library the fulsome, empty, unreal 
words which have been spoken over the dead, 
we would start back astonished at the crowd- 
ing volumes. Often reasons of state, or the 
presence of the living, or mere desire to show 
off one's eloquence, have dictated eulogies and 
chiselled epitaphs, which brought a smile to 
every lip, so entirely were they the reverse of 



54 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

the well known record of the dead. It is more 
excusable, when love, always blind to faults, 
glosses over glaring inconsistencies and paints 
ugly spots in rosy colors. But in spite of all 
this, there are memorials of the dead, which 
rest upon a sure and solid basis; there are 
words spoken about a friend in the rest of Par- 
adise, which are well deserved, and find a pre- 
cedent in our Lord's own sentence, "Well done 
good and faithful servant, enter thou into the 
joy of thy Lord." I am about to try to say some 
such words. Surely it ought not to be diffi- 
cult. This is not a memorial to some rich and 
ungodly man, whose relatives the poor clergy- 
man is afraid to offend by speaking the truth. 
It is not a service in honor of some public char- 
acter, whose official life and whose private life 
were diametrically opposed to the law of God. 
There is nothing hollow here. We are met to 
pay a tribute of respect to an earnest, hard- 
working, unselfish, warm hearted, devoted 
Bishop, who lived and died in the service of 
his Master. We are his friends, many of us his 
life-long friends. It surely need not trouble 
us to find loving words, and just words, out of 
which to weave a wreath of fond recollections 
to lay upon his grave. 

Let it be ours to dwell on all that was sweet 
and good, and true, in a life that was so sweet, 
so good, so true, that it gathered around it as 






SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 55 

devoted a body of friends as ever blessed any 
man's life. No one was ever more truly 
mourned. No one in our Church was ever 
more widely mourned. It is not often that 
you see a large city, like the one in which he 
lived, shut up its stores, close its schools, sus- 
pend its business, so that it might pay the last 
sad honors to one who was emphatically its 
foremost citizen, the enemy of no one but 
the true friend of all. 

Let me sketch briefly some traits of Bishop 
Clarkson's character, which stand vividly out 
in my mind. I think I may well do it, for we 
loved each other very dearly. We were fast 
friends from the moment when I, a young dea- 
con, set foot in this diocese. It was through his 
influence I came to this city. We were for 
years associated together here, and but few 
months have ever elapsed since he left to take 
the helm of the infant Diocese of Nebraska, 
without a sight of his friendly face and a grasp 
of his loving hand. How happy I am to think 
that last summer I was able to visit him, and to 
share in the delight he took in showing me his 
noble Cathedral, his Child's Hospital, his Cler- 
gy Home, his Girls' School, the provisions for 
future church-growth in Omaha, and his own 
delightful home, the seat of such unstinted 
hospitality. 

Ah me, and shall I never see him more on 



56 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

this side death? Thank God I need not cease 
to love him. 

•' As sometimes in a dead man's face, 

To them that watch it, more and more 
A likeness hardly seen before 
Comes out — to some one of his race. 

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, and know 
Thy likeness to the wise below, 

Thy kinship with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see ; 
And what I see, I leave unsaid, 
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee." 

The late Bishop was an exceeding wise man ; 
and if by worldly wisdom you mean a keen 
perception of the fitness of men for places, 
sagacity in forecasting the future, bringing to 
bear upon men the most effectual motives for 
moulding them to a good purpose, why then he 
had worldly wisdom; and for my part I wish that 
it were a trait more widely diffused among the 
clergy; there would not be so many foolish 
mistakes. It was he who, under God, urged 
and who secured the elections of Bishop Whip- 
ple for Minnesota, and of Bishop Garrett for 
Texas, truly a choice of men most happy in 
its consequences. It was he who pointed out 
De Koven to Bishop Kemper, as the fittest 
person in the whole land to take charge of 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 57 

Racine College. It was from his foresight 
that throughout the city of Omaha, desirable 
property has been secured in every section of 
the town, bought at very cheap rates, ready 
when the time comes for the Church to be 
built, which sooner or later will be required 
there. The whole Diocese of Nebraska is 
studded with pieces of church property, se- 
cured by the Bishop in the very founding of 
the towns, and held by him and his successors 
in trust, so that they cannot be alienated, but 
wait for the Church which is sure to come. 
Many of our best canonical regulations were 
made at his suggestion ; and in the Board of 
Missions of this Church his counsel has been 
most highly valued. His ready wit, his fertile 
resources, his quick perception, have enabled 
him many times to adjust differences which 
threatened much disorder, and to reconcile 
jarring elements with ease and permanency. 
He was always ready, always good-natured, no 
opponent ever found him unarmed, and often a 
few apt words would turn a foe into a friend. 
There are numerous anecdotes, the dignity of 
this place will not permit me to recount, which 
go to show how readily he adapted himself to 
the men he was obliged to meet in what was, 
but a few years ago on the frontier, and ten- 
anted by frontiersmen. But I consider his wis- 
dom as far inferior to his generosity. I do not 



58 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

believe the man ever lived who surpassed him 
in nobleness and generosity of heart. We 
sometimes hear of the " vices of our virtues," 
and this almost became so with him ; it was 
often so regardless of his means, his comfort, 
his time. He could no more resist the appeal 
of distress than iron can resist the attraction 
of the magnet. He would give the last penny 
he had to any one who he thought needed it, 
and, like all generous men, he was many times 
the victim of that baser class which trades on 
the kindheartedness of its fellows. But no re- 
buff ever dampened that glowing flame of gen- 
erosity which blazed on the altar of his heart. 
His purse, his house, his pen, his influence, 
were always at the command, not only of his 
friends, but of those who had scarcely the 
slightest right to his attention. And it was 
not only a generosity of material aid. There 
was in it that nobleness of nature which led 
him, on the very slightest acknowledgment, to 
forgive any one who had injured him, or mis- 
understood him. Anger passed out of his 
heart and resentment faded from his memory, 
as the image of the cloud fades from the lim- 
pid water. He hardly ever waited for a move- 
ment toward reconciliation, but was himself 
the first to display the olive branch of love and 
peace. There was nothing little or mean in his 
make-up. Belonging to the old-fashioned 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 59 

High Church school, he gave the widest toler- 
ance to those who differed from him, and any 
one who was willing to work heartily and de- 
votedly for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ 
was welcomed in his diocese. He numbered 
among his friends men of all shades of opin- 
ion ; and there lives not the man who ever 
heard him say anything bitter of any class of 
Christians. Let us turn to his self-sacrifice. 
When he was made Bishop of Nebraska, it 
was not the pleasant diocese it now is. It 
had no delightful residence like Omaha, with 
its fine buildings and its cultured society. 
There was no Cathedral, such as now, stately 
and beautiful, rises there; no lovely Bishop's 
house embowered in trees and flowers; no 
Brownell Hall with its crowding scholars. It 
was very rude and rough, and in all the fer- 
ment of any forming society. He left for it this 
noble parish, where for many years he had 
been the almost worshipped Rector, this 
city, where he had a great and rapidly increas- 
ing influence. He gave up ease, and comfort, 
and friendship, for what was, of course, a post 
of great honor, but one of great hardship and 
great self denial. He never complained of 
anything he had to endure ; and with that 
brightness which was so characteristic of him, 
turned every discomfort into a source of amuse- 
ment ; but he could tell a history of trials 



60 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

and perils by land and water, by flood and 
tempest, by heat and cold, during the early 
years of his episcopate in Nebraska and Da- 
kota which would shock the nerves of many a 
man who thinks himself hardly used, if he 
has to pass one night away from all the ap- 
pliances of modern civilization. He reaps, I 
doubt not, in Paradise a golden harvest in re- 
turn for all these seeds sown with tears and 
trial, but even here God gave him a glorious 
reward. He lived to see the State of his adop- 
tion rise in power, in population, in wealth, to 
a splendid eminence. He lived to see the few 
struggling missions which, far scattered, were 
all he could call his own when first he came, 
expand into the flourishing diocese, with its fine 
churches, its schools, its colleges, its hospital, 
its Cathedral, in many respects far superior to 
dioceses which counted a century of existence. 
He lived to receive from all his fellow men, 
the well earned sentence, "Thou hast done 
well. All this is thy care and thy endeavor 
guided by the grace of the ever blessed Trin- 
ity." He had great sweetness of disposition. 
There was in his tone of speech, and in the 
way in which he put his words, something al- 
most irresistible. It conveyed so clearly to 
you the impression of a loving, tender nature. 
It was this which made him so successful in se- 
curing material aid for his work. He won men 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 6l 

to help him by his soft, delightful manner. He 
was not what is called " gracious," for that im- 
plies a certain condescension, and no one in 
the world had less of that than he. It was a 
winning, sunny, pleasant way of approach, of 
speech, of answering objection, which while 
thoroughly manly, had the feminine charm of 
submissiveness, in its best form, a lovely addi- 
tion to any man's character. Children were 
always devoted to him, because he never over- 
looked them. In the most distinguished com- 
pany he took care never to forget their pres- 
ence, but to reserve for them some moments 
of close attention, and some store of bright and 
attractive anecdote. 

His attention, his courtesy, his self-forget- 
fulness, were just as evident in talking to a 
poor beggar woman as to the noblest in the 
land. All those little sacrifices of time and 
trouble, such as going to a train at unseason- 
able hours to meet a friend, when it was not 
necessary, but just a mark of kind attention, 
taking a long walk, or writing many letters in 
the midst of great press of work, to accomplish 
a little favor for a friend, such things as that 
were the Bishop's daily life. It was the at- 
mosphere he breathed. He never forgot the 
slightest request. Months would pass often, 
and then would come the kind words saying, 
" You asked me this, and this is what I have 



62 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

been able to do." It was a tonic to a man even 
to be with Bishop Clarkson an hour or so, so 
amiable, so bright, so overflowing with repartee 
and humor, so gentle, so observing of one's 
wants, and above all, a host whose hospitality 
was the most perfect and thorough it was ever 
my happiness to enjoy. But I think his gift 
of sympathy was that which endeared him the 
most to all who knew him. We read in the Acts 
of the meeting of some with St. Paul, and how 
after his words, " They thanked God and took 
courage." Oh, there are hundreds all over 
this Northwest, who have felt able, after open- 
ing their heart to the Bishop we are honoring, 
to " thank God and take courage." The young 
man in some trouble of mind, or circumstance, 
caused often by his own folly, found in him no 
stern reprover, but one who took him right 
into his arms, and with pity and earnest words 
of sense and force won him to do right. The 
sorrow-stricken, with the arrow yet rankling 
in the wound, felt that this man was a partner 
in their grief, shared in it, entered into its 
depth. Many before me know the truth of 
what I say; for when death entered their house- 
holds, they realized the warmth, the tenderness, 
the holy comfort of the pastor's heart, which 
beat responsive to their own. No wonder 
he was loved by his clergy. The lot of many 
of them is hard, fettered by a small salary, 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 63 

set in some lonely post, with much to dis- 
courage and depress ; often they grew dis- 
heartened, but ever in him they found a friend, 
a counsellor, a brother, as well as a Bishop. 
Letters of earnest love, gifts wisely chosen 
and guarded with pious secrecy and every now 
and then a visit from him, filled with encour- 
agement and cheer, his own house always 
open to them, and they always his most 
welcome guests, how could they help feeling 
drawn with strong cords to their Bishop. 
Above all others, they mourned for the Father 
in Israel taken from their head. No man was 
ever outside that wide sympathy, that com- 
passion, that tender desire to soften your 
sorrow, to help your misfortune, to restore 
your cheerfulness. Just as it is His sympa- 
thy, that in our Lord Jesus draws men the 
closest to Him, so is it a shadow of that sym- 
pathy which makes men seem best moulded 
in the image of Christ. I need not say that un- 
derneath all the Bishop's life, his practical wis- 
dom, his happy nature, his wit, his adaptive- 
ness, his management of affairs, lay a firm 
rockbed of utter and supreme devotion to his 
Master Christ. There his heart was fixed. 
To win men to the Cross, that was his mission, 
not talked about, not paraded, but ever pierc- 
ing through dry conversation, ever the ultimate 
aim of any action. On his life rests no blem- 



64 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

ish. In a crooked generation, his walk was 
onward and straightforward in the steps of 
our Leader and our Redeemer. As a man, as 
a citizen, as a priest, as a Bishop, I think we 
all will say he did well his part. I cannot 
speak here of his sweet domestic life, what he 
was as a father, as a son, as a husband. Those 
who have seen it know what it was. It is 
too delicate a flower to hold up in the sun- 
light of a public discourse and before a mixed 
congregation. 

He has gone, but not into darkness. The 
" Vale " we uttered over his grave was not the 
hopeless one of the Roman, as he turned away 
from the funeral pile with the little urn of 
ashes, all that was left, he thought. Our 
farewell is only for a time, only the earthly 
part is dissolved for ever. He in all his full 
activity is in God's own chosen place for the 
abode of the blessed. There he waits for those 
who are to come. There he enjoys the con- 
verse of those who are gone before. There he 
offers his prayers for his beloved diocese, and 
for us, whom he knew and loved on earth. 
There he will grow in glory and increase in 
brightness and in light. Surely we all will 
pray that so it may be with him. A blessing 
here, he will be a greater blessing there ; 
although it must seem to his bereaved flock 
and his sobbing family as if it could not be 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 65 

so. But must it not be so if death be the 
door to greater powers, greater knowledge, 
greater hope, and greater realization of all 
that Jesus Christ is able to do for them and 
us ? 

BISHOP MCLAREN'S REMARKS. 

The Rt. Rev. W. E. McLaren, S.T.D., Bishop 
of Illinois, said: It is appropriate, at the close 
of these impressive services, in which the sad 
and joyful elements seem to meet and harmon- 
ize, that the only representative present of 
that Order in Christ's Holy Church which 
Bishop Clarkson adorned, should pay his 
heartfelt tribute to the memory of a brother 
beloved. No man knows so well as a Bishop 
the peculiar trials and difficulties and the 
special helps and joys of the apostolic office. 
It was a permanent bereavement when he gave 
up his parish life for the larger labor and more 
extended influence of his diocesan relation. 
With a nature which was endowed beyond 
most, with an affluence of sympathetic love for 
his dear people, he was peculiarly qualified for 
the work of a pastor. He was the gentle shep- 
herd, never forgetful of his flock, and just as 
tender toward the lambs as faithful to the 
sheep. When he went away from St. James, 
to Nebraska, he went from holy associations, 
which were the product and reward of years of 

5 



66 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

honest toil and loving fellowship, to a post 
which, because so high, is also one of isolation. 
There is a loneliness in all positions of chief- 
tainship, which is hard for some natures to 
bear. Some, indeed, may find compensation 
in the honorable prominence and larger in- 
fluence which accrue ; but Bishop Clarkson 
could not be fascinated by such attractions at 
the expense of a warm and sympathetic nature, 
and hence his heart always turned back with 
deep affection to the people whom he left be- 
hind, when the voice of the Church he loved to 
obey bade him to "go up higher." 

So full and just have been the tributes to 
which we have listened here to-day, that I do 
not feel called upon to amplify. We have been 
told of all the past years, have heard the story 
of his love, his work, his solicitudes, his suc- 
cesses, have listened with sympathetic interest 
to the careful analysis of his character ; and 
now I may be permitted to change the direc- 
tion of your thought, and ask you to think of the 
Bishop Clarkson who has gone to a higher 
plane of effort and to achieve greater results to 
the glory of our God. 

In that vision which St. John saw of Heaven, 
when he gazed upward in the Spirit from the 
Isle of Patmos, words came to him which form 
a beautiful and instructive part of our burial 
office. He heard a voice, perhaps it was the 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 6j 

voice of one of those wise ones and holy, who 
evermore do God's bidding, and appreciate 
with profoundest interest the wonders of God's 
nature as revealed in the drama of redemp- 
tion, and the voice said, " Blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth!" 
Then, by a kind of antiphonal response, 
the announcement of the angel is followed by 
the voice of the Spirit, " Yea, saith the Spirit, 
that they may rest from their labors, and their 
works do follow them." The idea whichshines 
out beautifully from these words, is the eternal 
continuity of effort in the service of God. 
They who live in and labor unto God are not 
remitted at death to a condition of inactivity; 
they labor still, although they have entered 
into rest. They rest in, but not from, service. 
The word which is translated " labors," if 
you look into the Greek, is x6-oq } which 
means a kind of exertion which, by its exces- 
sive difficulty, produces weariness and outcries 
of distress. The root-idea is that of a wail. 
How expressive of most of our labor for 
Christ and His Church! There is so much 
to combat, within and without. A thousand 
forces of evil array themselves against him who 
strives to lead an unselfish life of devotion to 
God and humanity. There is so much that is 
earthly in the best of us all. There is so little 
real charity under the sun. God's purest 



68 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

saints are frequently least understood and 
most bitterly criticised. It has ever been so, 
and will be so to the end. Under our earthly 
surroundings, Christian work is hard work, 
often unappreciated, misrepresented, impeded, 
nay, sometimes neutralized by wickedly un- 
reasonable men. And the word of joy that 
comes to us to-day, by the voice of the Spirit, 
is. that the departed Bishop, whose tenement 
of clay we laid to rest the other day under the 
shadow of that noble Cathedral which his faith 
devised and his works realized, has passed out 
of the toilsomeness, weariness, grinding care 
and anxiety of his earthly labors. No more 
will he serve God, and wail while he serves. 
That kind of work is forever done. There 
are no thorns in the mitre he now wears. But 
the worker has not ceased from his activ- 
ity, nor has his hand forgot its cunning. That 
capacity of loving energy which was his, is 
his still, only it is purified from earthly stain, 
freed from all impediments, and permitted now 
to unfold to the fulness of its possibilities in 
the congenial atmosphere of Paradise. His 
works do follow him, not as labors that ex- 
haust the forces, but as works that contribute 
to every expanding grace of the soul new- 
born into the higher life. This, therefore, is not 
strictly a day in which we are to contemplate 
the past with sorrow and regret, but rather one 



SERVICES IN CHICAGO. 69 

in which we are to be thankful for all the in- 
spiring truths of our holy religion, which ir- 
radiate the future with promise and hope. It 
was a saying among the early Christians that 
they celebrated the day of the death of their 
friends, not as the day in which they ceased to 
be, but rather as the day of their birth, be- 
cause now they entered into the true life and 
began really to serve Him whom they loved. 
It is this thought, beloved in Christ, which I 
would impress upon you on this memorial oc- 
casion. Let memory shed her tears over the 
past with all its sacred associations, but do 
not permit the sanctity of a tender sympathy 
to exclude from your minds this more noble 
thought, of the immortality with which our 
departed friend is crowned, and the continued 
service which Robert Harper Clarkson is ren- 
dering to the Ever Blessed Trinity, under the 
more glorious conditions of the new life upon 
which, in the Church Expectant, his spirit has 
so lately entered. May God help us all to 
bear our toilsome labors here, with courage and 
hope, that we also may at the last enter into 
the fulness of the works that shall follow us! 



JO BISHOP CLARKSON. 

At this Service will be set apart for a Memorial 

Brass to be erected in this Church to 

the late Bishop Clarkson. 

Jgpmn 187. 

We>z iSenefctction. 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 

A MEMORIAL MEETING OF CITIZENS FOR THE LATE 
BISHOP CLARKSON. 

A MEMORIAL meeting of citizens for the 
late Bishop Clarkson was held in Boyd's 
Opera House on the evening of the 12th of 
March, and was largely attended by people 
of all nationalities and walks in life. 

Hon. Ezra Millard presided, and the stage 
was occupied by distinguished citizens. 

The chairman, calling the assemblage to 
order, said: 

"There is no occasion for me to say any- 
thing with respect to the great sorrow which 
has brought us together ; but I would embrace 
the opportunity to say that, in my judgment, 
no single life in Nebraska held within it so 
much of strength and usefulness as that of 
Bishop Clarkson. The loss is not alone to the 
Church, but to the State as well, and we have 
come together not as churchmen but as citi- 
zens. High and low, great and small, we all 
knew him, and have been accustomed to claim 
and receive from his hands sympathy and 
kindly consideration. The little struggling 



72 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

hamlet had as firm a hold upon his affection 
as the busy city at home. As illustrating the 
esteem in which he was held by the commun- 
nity, it was shown in the published statement 
a few days since, that the Presb.yterians, Con- 
gregationalists, Lutherans and Methodists 
had at their prayer meetings addressed to 
the Throne of Grace, petitions that the life of 
this good Bishop, so beloved by all, might be 
prolonged among us. But it was not so to be, 
and we are led to bow to the decree in sor- 
row. 

"Resolutions, written by Mr. Woolworth, 
will now be presented to you." 

The Hon. A. J. Poppleton presented the 
resolutions as follows: 

"Profoundly sensible of the great calamity 
which has befallen this city and this common- 
wealth in the death of the Right Reverend 
Dr. Clarkson, and leaving to his clergy and 
people the commemoration of his services as 
Prelate of the Church, and to his family and 
intimate personal friends the memory of the 
most affectionate relations, we, his neighbors 
and fellow citizens, assembled for the purpose 
of paying our tribute to his civic virtues, in 
the most public and emphatic manner of which 
we are capable, do hereby declare: 

"That in the death of this distinguished 
and patriotic citizen, this community has sus- 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. ?$ 

tained a grievous and irreparable loss. Com- 
ing here before a large prosperity had been 
realized, Bishop Clarkson entered into the 
august work of laying the foundation of so- 
ciety, with an interest, a zeal and a hope 
which far transcended the bounds usually set 
to the clerical office. With a wise foresight 
he prophesied, and never once doubted the 
prosperity which this city of his adoption has 
enjoyed; and he rejoiced with the keenest 
delight and the highest exultation in the 
accomplishment of his enthusiastic anticipa- 
tions. 

" In the school which he provided for our 
daughters, and in the beautiful charity for 
little children which he planted and built up, 
and in the influence which he has exerted 
upon social institutions and the hearts of all 
men and women who gave ear to his coun- 
sels or craved his sympathy, he has erected 
a monument for himself which in all the gen- 
erations will never crumble or decay. 

" It is a fit close of his long and laborious 
and most successful career, not only for the 
Church which he loved, but for the people 
among whom he had his home, that he built 
his Cathedral to be a grace and a joy forever. 
It was his aspiration here, at all times of pub- 
lic gratulation or of public sorrow, by means 
of adequate and fit religious services, to link 



74 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

the patriotic impulses of the whole citizenship 
with the immortal truths of our divine reli- 
gion; and also that, as the years passed by, 
and one and another great name should, in 
the course of nature, fall from its place among 
men, here should be kept some worthy record 
or symbol of distinguished public service and 
honored citizens. 

"And so, as well as otherwise, he sought 
and largely succeeded in impregnating and 
irradiating this our civilization with the faith 
of a generous, tolerant, catholic religion. 

" Great as an ecclesiastic, graceful as a 
scholar, generous as a neighbor, unswerving 
and unselfish as a friend, he never forgot, but 
deeply cherished and wisely fulfilled, all his 
duties as a citizen." 

Mr. Poppleton continuing said: 

" On behalf of the committee reporting the 
resolutions, I move their acceptance, and beg 
leave to submit a few remarks upon the mo- 
tion. 

" It is eminently proper that the citizens of 
Omaha, representing the manifold interests 
which, in their aggregate, constitute its busi- 
ness growth and prosperity, should place upon 
the record their estimate of the services of 
the deceased Bishop, to the people of this City 
and State. 

" Leaving, therefore, to his co-laborers in a 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 75 

higher sphere in which his life was spent, such 
eulogy as may fitly characterize his life-long 
devotion to his work, his self-abnegation, his 
utter unselfishness, his quick and keen sym- 
pathy with all human suffering, whether bodi- 
ly or spiritual, his cheerful acceptance and 
patient, steadfast endurance of labors and 
hardships, in ministering to a frontier jurisdic- 
tion containing one hundred and seventy-two 
thousand square miles of territory, his heroic 
courage and self-sacrifice in assuaging and 
ameliorating every form of human suffering 
and grief, allow me to speak of him in his 
character as a citizen. 

" Bishop Clarkson first visited Omaha in 
December, 1865, and shortly after became a 
permanent resident. At that time Omaha had 
just become fully aroused from the lethargy 
which had settled upon it in September, 1857, 
and seemed girding itself for the growth and 
prosperity which these latter years have wit- 
nessed. The territory was slowing recover- 
ing from a prolonged stagnation in immigration 
and development, which had driven many 
from its borders, and discouraged and dis- 
heartened those at home. There were less 
than fifty miles of railway in Nebraska. The 
extension of that was doubtful and uncertain. 
Many of the great railway systems, which 
have during his residence among us, gradually 



y6 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

extended themselves west of the Missouri 
until their mileage is reckoned by thousands, 
and no federal territory is left untouched, were 
unorganized and unknown. 

"The vast territory constituting his mis- 
sionary jurisdiction was rich in nothing but 
natural resources, and in the hearts and arms 
of widely scattered settlements, led largely by 
men under forty years of age, who had by ac- 
cident or impulse effected a lodgment in that 
particular spot, and with their homes and altars 
were there to stay. To the vision of those 
who for years had waited for the dawn, the 
future seemed as gloomy as the past; and they 
looked forward rather with anxiety than hope. 

" Coming to the territory at such a time, 
Bishop Clarkson made an enormous contribu- 
tion to the hope and confidence of the people. 
Victor Hugo says of one of his ideal heroes, 
' He was one, but he was equal to ten thou- 
sand ! ' With a quick, keen sympathy which 
seemed to touch every phase of life, he identi- 
fied himself in feeling and act with all worthy 
plans for material growth and progress. With 
a never flagging hope, inspired, perhaps, to 
some extent by the marvellous progress of the 
city from which he came, and a clear vision of 
the latent possibilities of the empire through 
which his journeyings led, he was a living force 
in the advancement of every enterprise. 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. JJ 

"Some of us, too, remember that when any 
long-watched work had been crowned with 
success, and we gathered together to fitly cel- 
ebrate its completion, he was often present, 
one of the chief contributors to the instruction 
and happiness of the occasion. These things 
without impairing in the slightest degree his 
official character or influence, brought him 
near to thousands of business men and people 
who held no church relations. 

" Probably the general body of the people of 
Omaha has never contributed so liberally to 
any one religious enterprise, as to the beauti- 
ful Cathedral which was his last and crowning 
work — fit monument to his memory. How 
much of this was due to the universal respect 
and regard begotten of his deep interest in the 
general prosperity and growth of the city of 
his residence? 

" The highest attribute of citizenship is pa- 
triotism. The scholar who preferred pover- 
ty and toil in his own country, to wealth and a 
title of nobility on condition of expatriation, 
gave to the world one of its noblest examples 
of human virtue. Bishop Clarkson lived in 
times which intensified his natural love for his 
country. He saw nothing in his ecclesiastical 
office to divorce him from the duties of citizen- 
ship. He was master of the history and frame 
of the government, and to him his country was 



7% BISHOP CLARKSON. 

a living presence. It was not in his nature to 
hate anything; but he believed in the sovereign- 
ty and supremacy of the federal government 
within its sphere, and he accepted with all his 
heart every act and construction necessary to 
maintain it inviolate. He saw, as all clear- 
sighted men see, that upon no other founda- 
tion could a permanent nationality rest ; and 
it was doubtless one of the felicities of his life, 
that he lived to see the great North American 
republic at rest upon the only question which 
ever menaced its existence. 

" Nebraska has attained a population of per- 
haps seven hundred thousand people. It has 
made unexampled strides in prosperity. It has 
railways, mills, banks, herds, farms, and the ten 
thousand forms of material wealth. All these 
things are constantly increasing. The greed 
for wealth, sharpened by indulgence, but never 
satisfied by acquisition, seldom actually curbed 
by any moral restraint, expands its deathly 
foliage over the citizen, the family and the 
State — until many of the best people come to 
believe, or live as if they believed, the husks 
of life were its fruit and flower. The charac- 
ter of the State is in the moral, intellectual and 
spiritual exaltation of its people. The death- 
less memories of the earth are not of cash 
accumulations, but of heroic deeds, glorified 
spirits, intellectual conquests, sacrifices for 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 79 

liberty, the pitting of one inflexible human 
spirit against the errors and wrongs of ages, 
the voluntary surrender of one life that many 
lives may be made happier. These are the 
ultimate good, to which all human effort must 
tend or become aimless and useless. Looking 
back for thirty years we can see that as a peo- 
ple we have been largely instant upon the 
non-essentials of life. The next generation 
must consecrate itself more and more to that 
intellectual culture and moral exaltation 
which shall lift the State to an equality with 
the highest. 

"The means and implements of this ad- 
vancement lie all about us. The churches, 
the common schools, the voluntary associa- 
tions for mental improvement, the State Uni- 
versity, which is sure to become quickly, under 
good administration, the intellectual leader of 
the State and its people — all are forces set in 
array for the achievement of this higher des- 
tiny which is sure to be attained. 

" And when that day shall come, upon the 
roll of self-denying scholars and citizens who 
have contributed to that grand result, no name 
will shine with greater lustre than Robert H. 
Clarkson — whose presence, and teaching,, and 
preaching in every city, and village, and set- 
tlement, and school-house, and grove into 
which his missionary journeys led him, were 



8o BISHOP CLARKSON. 

themselves education, refinement, culture, 
moral, intellectual and spiritual exaltation. 
His faultless taste, his sympathetic eloquence, 
his simple manners, his pervading charity, his 
contagious sympathy, left every community 
he visited wiser, nobler and better than he 
found it. 

"What higher eulogy can be pronounced 
upon any citizen ? 

"Nothing in Bishop Clarkson's life gave 
higher evidence of his courage and self-denial 
than the acceptance of his work in Nebraska. 
Born in an old and wealthy state, surrounded 
by comforts and luxuries, educated at the best 
schools, early exhibiting the fine qualities 
which made him a model of manner, taste and 
expression, settled apparently in perpetuity 
over a refined and wealthy parish, idolized by 
his people, when the summons came from this 
frontier country, "Come over and help us," 
he put behind what he seemed rightly to have 
won, surroundings consonant with his charac- 
ter and taste, and unhesitatingly girded him- 
self for the trials and hardships he knew were 
in store for him. Others have declined such 
tasks, but his gentle and heroic spirit ac- 
cepted the sacrifice and went forth patiently 
and steadfastly to his work. For more than 
eighteen years he went up and down his vast 
jurisdiction, denying himself personal com- 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 8l 

forts, foregoing needed rest, perplexed day 
and night with problems he must largely solve 
alone, with the ever present task of accom- 
plishing ends without adequate means, until 
in sheer weariness his tired spirit rests. 

" Labors, and dangers, and hardships, which 
men encounter for the love of gold, he ac- 
cepted for his love of men. Knowing what 
lay before him, nothing in his life was nobler 
than his acceptance of the work to which he 
was called. 

"We speak of him as dead. His official life 
is ended. His body is without life. But the 
personality, the character, which we knew as 
Robert H. Clarkson, will never die. More or 
less indelibly it is stamped upon our City, our 
State, our people; and it will be a vitalizing 
and exalting force so long as this municipality, 
this Commonwealth survives. As citizens we 
claim him as one of the founders of our State, 
and we cherish his spotless memory as a pre- 
cious inheritance for those whose high duty it 
shall be to mould the Commonwealth into its 
ultimate perfect form." 

Judge James W. Savage said: 

" It is indeed not unmeet that this spon- 
taneous assemblage should gather to contem- 
plate the character of a Christian gentleman. 
But not to mourn for him. We do not mourn 
6 



82 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

when the sun, after lighting and warming and 
cheering us in his course, sinks at evening to 
his rest in the western sea, though the earth 
is left for a time cold and dark and unlovely. 
We do not mourn when the ripened corn in 
autumn falls beneath the sickle to become 
food and sustenance for the trusting children 
who have planted it, though the hillsides have 
lost their beauty and the fields no longer 
smile with the harvest. We do not mourn 
when the toiling laborer at night betakes him- 
self to his couch, and upon him descends the 
benediction of unbroken sleep, though we 
miss his brave talk and the mild influence of 
his example. We know that the sun will rise 
again to brighten and revivify the earth with 
its beams; we know that with returning spring 
the hillsides will renew their verdure, and that 
in time the fields will again rustle with the 
golden grain; we know that the strong man 
will rise refreshed and again go to his work. 
And so we know that our Bishop, somewhere, 
in some sphere of renewed life and activity, 
still watches over the work he commenced 
here, and still remembers those he has left 
behind. 

"We do not then mourn; or if we do, it is 
for ourselves and not for him. He was so 
near Heaven during his life, that it seems as if 
he has made no long journey to reach it. His 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 83 

characteristics were so lovely and beautiful, 
he so followed his great Exemplar, that we 
might almost feel that he was in Heaven before 
he left the earth. 

" One of these characteristics was his won- 
derful compassion. How tender was the love 
he bore to the poor, the suffering, the unfor- 
tunate everywhere ! Those who had most 
offended his guileless nature could always be 
surest of his sympathy. In this he was like 
the noble tree of which Bacon speaks — the 
more he was wounded the more he gave forth 
the healing balm. So gentle was he that the 
youngest of his toddling grandchildren could 
sway and bend him to its little will, as though 
he were a reed shaken by the wind. 

"And yet bravery was no less a distinguish- 
ing trait of his life. How strong he was for 
the right ! Let an unhallowed hand be 
stretched forth to touch the ark of God which 
he guarded so faithfully, and how stout was 
his opposition, how brave he was in the 
defence of his convictions ! 

"Look also at the purity of his character. 
Its clearness and transparency were perfect. 
In his life there was never anything to con- 
ceal. His ends were always accomplished by 
straightforward means. He used no subter- 
fuges, he knew no indirection. 

"Above all he had that greatest of the 



84 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Christian graces — charity. Human himself, 
nothing pertaining to humanity was foreign to 
him. He loved mankind. He never yielded 
to the storm of indignation which sometimes 
follows the perpetration of a great crime. He 
rather looked upon the offender — guilty though 
he might be — as though he suffered and sym- 
pathized with him. 

" What a complete and rounded life was his; 
and how thoroughly his work seemed to be 
finished before he left us. He had come to 
this State before it was a State, and had seen it 
grow in riches, power and population until it 
is no mean Commonwealth. He had seen the 
little village which he fixed upon as his home, 
swell and increase to a strong, influential and 
wealthy city ; he had seen the school which 
was always so near his heart become self-sus- 
taining and doing good throughout the land ; 
and, last of all, he had seen the stately Cathe- 
dral, every stone of which he loved, and had 
watched grow in its beauty and strength until 
it was completed and consecrated. It seemed 
as though a fitting time to die had come — as 
though his warfare was accomplished. I think, 
perhaps, that with all his love for his surround- 
ings, with all the affection he bore to his be- 
loved family, he was not sorry when the Master 
called, to give up his work, lay down his cross 
and rest. He had sometimes expressed the 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 85 

feeling that the work was too hard and heavy 
for him. There were appeals for aid which he 
could not always furnish ; there were requests 
which he could not always grant; and his kindly 
heart grieved to refuse what it yearned to 
bestow. 

"I pity the man who has walked up and 
down these streets and seen Bishop Clarkson's 
daily walk and conversation, and not been 
better for it. 

"It was my high advantage to stand for a 
moment by his bedside just before the closing 
scene. His strong mind was sometimes cloud- 
ed by the effects of his disease, and he was 
talking with dead Bishops whom he knew 
years ago ; he was consecrating churches ; he 
was confirming maidens ; he was baptizing 
children ; his whole thought was upon the 
work which for him was over. Yet now and 
then his eye would fall upon some one whom he 
knew, and by an effort of that vigorous will 
which seemed at times powerful enough to 
bring him back from the very jaws of death, 
he would come again to earth, and greet his 
friends with the pleasant smile which was so 
familiar to all who knew him, and which in 
death seemed sweeter than ever. 

"He has gone out from among us; but 
though dead he yet speaketh. From that 
quiet bier, from those pallid, closed lips I hear 



86 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

a voice which says: 'Be compassionate; be 
brave ; be pure ; be charitable/ " 

Rev. W. J. Harsha, pastor of the First Pres- 
byterian Church, next addressed the assem- 
blage. 

"I have been requested by the committee 
to be present to express the esteem in 
which the memory of Bishop Clarkson was 
held by the several pastors of this City. 
Although other lips more eloquent than mine 
have spoken fitting words descriptive of his 
character, his life, words and deeds, I esteem 
it a great privilege to be allowed to say that, 
though not permitted to be so close to him as 
some others who are present, yet I have felt it 
a privilege to touch the hem of his garment. 
Some have been associated with him as pastors ; 
and I presume all have heard him as a preacher, 
and all have certainly come under his influence 
as a citizen. I am glad that I came in contact 
with him as a philanthropist. Questions in- 
volving many considerations and affecting the 
well-being of one of our most degraded races 
and which could only be settled in Washing- 
ton brought us into his society; and we were 
amazed to find how wise he was, and at the 
same time were touched to see how tender 
and loving he was ; and to-day as I had the 
privilege of seeing him clad in the robes of his 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 87 

office, looking- as if the life had not left him, 
surrounded by his books, well worn, the chosen 
friends of his life, with his desk at hand and 
his chair and pen, and surrounded by the 
flowers that affection had brought, as memen- 
tos from many parts of this Great West, and 
the paintings and pictures showing his fellow 
Bishops, I said to myself, ' surely though the 
worker may fall, the work shall go on ; some 
other shall take up the mantle of his phil- 
anthropy.' I believe that although there is so 
much selfishness, there will be some one to 
take his share of the sympathy and tenderness 
which we so much admired ; and as those pres- 
ent go from the place where they met to do 
him honor, let each one take something to 
make him better and more tender ; and then 
when the last closing scene comes they will 
meet and talk with those who have gone 
before." 

Hon. J. M. Thurston said: 

" ' The living are the only dead, 
The dead live no more to die, 
And often when we mourn them dead, 
They never were more nigh.' 

"To do and to die is the sum total of human 
existence. The cares, sorrows, joys, strifes, 
contentions, and the rest and pleasant places 
of life are all epitomized in this ; unless we 
believe that there is some light beyond the 



88 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

grave that illuminates our existence and makes 
it worthy of living-. We are assembled in 
answer to the most unselfish sentiments that 
human hearts are capable of, leaving behind 
us our business to voice the sympathy and 
sorrow for the death of one whom we had all 
loved, and to express in some little degree 
those feelings of admiration, respect and love 
for the life that he has lived among us. The 
great prophets, disciples, teachers and priests 
of the religion of which he was one of the 
greatest lights, have done more to civilize, 
better and glorify mankind, than all the other 
agencies of human government and human 
society combined. It is our duty to testify 
this of him as his fellow citizens. The ways 
of life, the doctrines and daily examples of 
Robert H. Clarkson have done as much to hold 
together this government of our State as any 
other, and I might say all other agencies com- 
bined. He left the home of his boyhood and 
of his manhood and accepted a field of labor 
here on the borders of civilization, when these 
our prairies had scarcely been trod except by 
the wandering foot of the savage beast and 
scarcely less savage man. He wandered to 
and fro as did the disciples of old, with all his 
belongings by his side, and the canopy of 
heaven as his only shelter and stars his only 
guide. So he went about doing good. In his 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 89 

own broad creed there was no such thought, as 
that any human soul was totally depraved. 
He did not know that there existed upon the 
face of this earth a being created in the image 
of his Maker who was so low, that a kind word, 
a tender act, and the sympathy and love which 
he possessed for all mankind in so great a de- 
gree, could not win away to a better and more 
glorious existence. He felt that to do good 
was the sum total of his life among us. What 
more can be said of any man than that he 
loved his fellow men ; that he gave up personal 
ends and sacrificed personal ambitions ; that 
he gave up his own desires and comfort and 
brought all that he had and could get, and laid 
it upon the altar for the regeneration and 
advancement of his fellow men ? So to-night 
we are gathered together to testify to his ex- 
cellence." 

Rev. Thomas B. Lemon, Presiding Elder of 
the Methodist Church, made the closing ad- 
dress. 

He said that almost all the occupations of 
life were represented by those present ; reso- 
lutions expressing admirable sentiments had 
been presented, and we are here to do honor 
to one who is gone, to commemorate his mem- 
ory and speak of his worth. 

We may well say "a great man has fallen." 



90 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

No one looking at the life of Bishop Clarkson 
but will admit he was a great man because of 
the principles that made up his being. He was, 
apart from the classical structure of his mind, 
a very practical man, with well settled judg- 
ment. Everyone beheld him in the beautifully 
rounded character of the good man. The 
different orders of society assembled here to- 
night indicate that men do not object to the 
principles of Christianity, when they see them 
presented in the character of a good man ; 
there is something in the Christian man that 
seems to commend itself, and every one may 
say of him : " He is my epistle ; known and 
read of all men." 

The speaker said that in 1856, in Chicago, 
he frequently heard Bishop Clarkson preach, 
and since then had often been brought in con- 
tact with him on the frontier, where, in sod 
school houses, he gathered his scattered flocks 
and preached the sweet truths of the gospel 
of the Redeemer. Referring to the generosity 
of his own friends in presenting himself and 
wife with a home in their old age, he said that 
the donation received from the Bishop was 
accompanied by a tender, sympathetic note 
characteristic of the giver. Bishop Clarkson's 
monument is in the souls he has confirmed, 
the missions he has planted, schools inaugu- 



HIS CIVIC VIRTUES. 91 

rated, churches built, and in the impression he 
has made on the public mind. 

On motion of Dr. G. L. Miller, the resolu- 
tions were then adopted and the meeting- 
adjourned, after expressing by vote a wish 
that business houses be closed between the 
hours of one and three P.M. to-day, in order 
that there may be a general attendance at the 
funeral services. 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES OF 
VARIOUS BODIES. 

FROM THE BISHOPS ATTENDING THE FUNERAL. 

THE Bishops gathered on the occasion of 
the burial of their dear and honored 
brother, the Bishop of Nebraska, cannot sep- 
arate without giving expression to the feelings 
of love and reverence with which they regard- 
ed him while living, and now mourn him when 
departed. 

There will be others who will testify to 
what he was in his Diocese, the strong and 
tender father of all his flock ; of what he was 
as a citizen, broad, generous, wise and humane ; 
of what he was in the varied trusts and offices 
held by him, in which he came, with his clear, 
strong mind, and with his admirable executive 
qualities, naturally to the front. 

But for us it is left to speak of him as one 
who belonged not merely to his Diocese, but 
to the Church at large; in whose person the 
American Episcopate revealed some of its 
best results, and one whose sagacity and in- 
trepid faith we shall long lament the loss of in 
the councils of the Church. 

92 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 93 

He stands before our memories as a repre- 
sentative Western Bishop. Whatever other 
interests were astir, that which by eminence 
brought him to his feet and kindled his en- 
thusiasm was his intense belief in the great 
possibilities of the growth and mission of the 
Church, in the new states and territories of the 
growing West. His faith in this was sublime. 
His demands on the Church in behalf of it 
were often in advance of what was conceded ; 
and yet his belief was ever fresh and strong, 
and he imparted his enthusiasm to others. 

In the great representative councils of the 
Church and in its vast missionary gatherings 
his clear voice rang out with an eloquence all 
his own, rallying the Church's faltering hopes, 
and calling it to more generous standards of 
giving. Some of his utterances formed epochs 
in the Church's present awakened conscious- 
ness of larger missionary duty. 

Living as he did in the Gate City of the 
West, his home was the resort of the Mission- 
ary Bishops on their way to and from their 
great fields of work ; and in the cheer and 
sunny presence and intense faith of their 
leader, they became stronger themselves. 

His brethren recall how singularly in him 
were combined the astuteness and tenacity of 
purpose of the man of affairs, with the simple 
faith of the child and the tenderness of the 



94 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

woman. His laity and his clergy equally 
trusted in and loved him. A great city hushed 
its work and stood reverently as his honored 
remains were borne through it to his grave. 

His fellow sharers in the same great trust 
that he bore so loftily, take up their duties 
again with a renewed consecration of purpose, 
as they leave his mortal remains under the 
shadow of the beautiful Cathedral whose com- 
pletion he was permitted to see and rejoice in, 
imploring of God upon his bereaved family 
and Diocese, grace, mercy and peace from God 
the Father, and from His Son, Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 

MINUTE OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS OF THE 
MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

This Board has just heard with profound 
sorrow of the recent death of the Rt. Rev. 
Robert Harper Clarkson, D.D., LL.D., Bishop 
of Nebraska. 

It avails itself of this, the earliest oppor- 
tunity, to record its sense of the great and 
afflicting loss, not only to the Diocese of Ne- 
braska, but to this Board and to the whole 
Church, by this sad and sudden visitation of our 
merciful Father. 

With lively gratitude to God it recalls, and 
with tender, mournful satisfaction it will re- 
member, the character, life and labors of this 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 95 

well beloved and apostolic servant of Christ. 
In each and all he was remarkable among his 
peers. In each and all he had a hold upon the 
common heart of the Church such as it falls 
to the lot of few men to win. His praise is, 
indeed, this day in all the Churches; and by all 
will the memory of what he was and did be 
gratefully cherished. 

For seventeen out of the eighteen years of his 
Episcopate he was most intimately associated 
with this Board as one of the leading, repre- 
sentative Missionary Bishops of this Church. 
In this relation he was always wise in counsel, 
faithful to every duty, energetic and devoted 
in executing whatever was devised for the 
furtherance of the Church's welfare, and espe- 
cially for the extension of her missionary work 
among the rapidly gathering millions in the 
new empires of the West. 

During those years so crowded with self- 
denials, hardships and toils all worthy of a 
true Apostle of Jesus Christ, it was allowed 
him to see, and the whole Church to rejoice 
over, the steady and sure growth of his juris- 
diction from the feeblest beginnings into a 
vigorously organized and effective Diocese. 
In this strongly developed and wisely fashioned 
work, into whose fruits many posterities 
will enter as the generations roll on, we recog- 



g6 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

nize the only true and suitable monument to 
his memory. 

Though with a high sense of the authority 
of office, this man of God preferred, in all his 
Episcopal administration, to build on the moral 
authority born of an affectionate confidence 
among his fellows, in his purity of character, 
wisdom of judgment, and deep unselfish devo- 
tion to the work the Master had given him 
to do. 

Should it ever become known outside the 
circle of his own immediate cares and respon- 
sibilities how much and how often he sacrificed 
himself to promote the usefulness and well 
being of his missionary clergy, none will won- 
der that, as a body, they were always so ready 
to endure hardness, and to follow their leader 
wheresoever the Master's call might draw him. 

And now this Board mourns most of all that 
it will see his face no more, never again feel 
the inspiration of his deep, unwasting mission- 
ary zeal, or hear his voice plead, with magnetic 
power and burning love, the great commission 
of the eternal Shepherd and Bishop of souls, 
"Go ye into all the world, discipling and 
baptizing all nations in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
Amen." 

Resolved, That a copy of this minute be 
entered on the minutes of this Board. 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 97 

Resolved, That a copy be forwarded to the 
Standing Committee of the Diocese of Ne- 
braska. 

Resolved, That a copy be sent to the widow 
and family of the late Bishop. 

Resolved, That this minute be published in 
the Spirit of Missions. 

RESOLUTIONS PASSED BY THE CLERGY OF THE DIO- 
CESE OF NEBRASKA AND OF THE MISSIONARY 
JURISDICTION OF DAKOTA. 

Whereas, It has seemed good to our Father 
in Heaven to take to Himself the soul of the 
Rt. Rev. Robert Harper Clarkson, D.D.,LL.D., 
we, the clergy of the Diocese of Nebraska, 
and of those present from the Missionary Juris- 
diction of Dakota, do bow ourselves with the 
utmost submission and resignation to the Di- 
vine will, 

Resolved, That we do hereby place on record 
the sense of our great bereavement; and that 
we shall ever, with the fondest regard, keep in 
memory how our Bishop endeared himself to 
us all by his wise government, touching elo- 
quence, generous hospitality, tenderest sym- 
pathy, unbounded labors, self-sacrifice and 
most noble charities. We are led to just 
searchings of heart as we consider the inscru- 
table Providence that relieves from labor such 

7 



98 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

a man in the midst of his years of greatest 
usefulness in the Church of Christ. 

We would most gratefully express our grati- 
tude to God in His having for eighteen years 
preserved our Bishop, in the midst of much 
exposure and danger, and permitted him to be 
most tenderly nursed and skilfully treated in 
his last sickness and in the bosom of his 
family. 

We would also thank our Heavenly Father 
for having given us such a leader, while we did 
the work of His own Son in extending salva- 
tion to our fellow men; and we pray that the 
labors done in health by our late Bishop, the 
patient endurance at all times, and especially 
in his last sickness, the triumphant faith dis- 
played as the end approached, and the calm, 
beautiful departure, may encourage us in our 
work and assure us that our labors shall not be 
in vain. 

Resolved, That the clergy of Nebraska and 
those of the jurisdiction of Dakota be requested 
to hold memorial services on next Sunday or 
on the Sunday following. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions 
be prepared and presented to the bereaved 
companion of the departed, and with the 
assurance of our heartiest sympathy in her 
sorrow. 

Resolved, That these resolutions be printed 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 99 

in the daily journals of the cities of the West, 
as also in the Church papers of our country. 



FROM THE CATHEDRAL CHAPTER OF THE DIOCESE 
OF NEBRASKA. 

Since we last met in Chapter, our Head and 
Right Reverend Father has ceased from his 
labors. Convened for the first time without his 
presidency, our first duty is to make of record 
our testimony to his name. 

In the old books the Chapter is called the 
Senate of the Bishop, and its members are 
called his brothers. Realizing in these days 
the theory of the early centuries, this Chapter 
bears to the Bishop a peculiar relation. It is 
charged with the duty of assisting him in the 
exercise of his Episcopal office. Our assistance 
to our Bishop particularly relates to the mis- 
sions and the funds and property of the 
Diocese. In the discharge of this duty we saw 
Bishop Clarkson close at hand in his daily 
administration. We rejoice that the several 
bodies to which he belonged, the parishes, the 
Cathedral vestry, the Boards of Trust of the 
Schools, the assembled citizenship of Omaha, 
the Board of Managers of the Missionary 
Society, the vestry of the Church which he 
served through all his priesthood, and his 

LofC. 



IOO BISHOP CLARKSON. 

brethren of the Episcopate, have made record 
of their affection and appreciation. 

As in a particular sense members of his 
church family, we have known him in the 
closest association, we do make mention and 
declare as preeminent these grand facts : 

1. It is to his provident thoughtfulness and 
vigilant activity that the Diocese owes the 
fact, that default was never once made in the 
payment of the stipends of the missionaries 
on the day they became due; and to his 
unstinted generosity and solicitous affection 
that no one of his clergy ever, in any need or 
adversity, appealed to him in vain. To encour- 
age and help the weak and remote stations, 
he was an itinerant missionary on the frontier, 
giving up the enjoyments and ease of pleasant 
places, and meeting every manner of hardship 
for his Master. 

2. His wise foresight, careful diligence and 
resolute self-denial provided the Diocese with 
considerable property and endowment ; and 
these he gathered out of the smallest means. 
Some of us remember, in the early years of 
his Episcopate, the little Whitsunday offerings 
which were the foundation of the fund for the 
support of the Bishop, now adequate thereto ; 
and how, when a part of the income of the 
fund was tendered to him by us, he refused it, 
looking to the day when a more imperative 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. IOI 

need would press upon us. Nor was it other- 
wise with other funds. And we all recall, in 
all our affairs, how careful and anxious and 
wise and true he was, not so much for the 
things of the day into which his interests 
entered, but for the days to come, when 
another should enter into his labors. 

3. In the contemplation of the character of 
Bishop Clarkson we have revealed to us, in a 
new and clearer light, the beauty of holiness. 
What is shadowed forth in some grand shrine 
erected to the glory of Almighty God, or in 
some other work of sacred art, is here displayed 
to our view in a true reality. His utter humil- 
ity, that made him unconscious of himself and all 
he was and had done and deserved ; his mascu- 
line strength when standing up against wrong, 
for what he believed to be just and right ; his 
absolute faith in the Saviour, so pure and warm 
and strong that no doubt ever once touched it ; 
his love of all men, so wide that no one was 
beyond its reach, so active that no need of 
help once seen went unsupplied ; so generous 
that he was bowed with the burdens of others 
and never knew how he was weighted ; the 
purity of his nature such that an evil thing in 
his presence, if it can be conceived, seemed a 
sacrilege ; and these qualities, and the others 
that go with them, all aglow with the grace 
and even playfulness that the innocence of 



102 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

little children has; surely here we see the 
very substance and truth of a beauty not 
made with hands, even of a Temple of the 
Holy Ghost. 

4. We thank our Heavenly Father for the 
example of this Saint now departed in His 
faith and fear, and for the blessing that has 
been ours to be near to him in this world. We 
cannot check our grief for our grievous loss, 
nor suppress our sympathy for his widow and 
kinsfolk ; but surely to all will come another 
meeting from which there will be no parting. 

FROM THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE DIOCESE. 

Be it resolved, That in the loss of the first 
Bishop of Nebraska, we have lost one who was 
also first in counsel, first in example and first 
in every noble work ; that looking to the 
upbuilding of what has now, under his foster- 
ing care, grown to be a strong and independ- 
ent Diocese, with its noble Cathedral, its hos- 
pital, its endowment, its educational institutes, 
which have been largely the result of his own 
patient and persistent energy, we desire to 
express our heartfelt gratitude to God for 
these great benefits, and for the noble example 
he has set us, of patience with us, of good will 
toward us, and for his unswerving loyalty. He 
was truly Catholic in his sympathies, a lover 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 103 

of home and foreign missions, a lover of good 
men, a man of broad views, full of sunshine 
and true happiness. Whether we consider his 
life or death, as we look back upon both, they 
seem complete pictures, wanting in no single 
line of grace or loveliness. 

Resolved, That we cherish his grateful re- 
membrance, and will endeavor to undertake in 
his name some further work, that would have 
met his approbation if he were living. 

Resolved, That we put on record the sense 
of bereavement we sustain as a Diocese, and 
also our grateful appreciation of the kindly 
sentiments expressed by other religious bodies, 
and especially by the citizens of Omaha in 
public assembly. Every village and hamlet in 
Nebraska and Dakota where he was known and 
respected does assuredly sympathize with us. 

Resolved, That we tender to his immediate 

family and relatives our sympathy in their 

personal affliction, which must be greatly 

mitigated in view of his many toils and labors, 

and in that he lives securely in the loving 

remembrance of all who had the happiness 

of his acquaintance, whether in church or 

state. _ . ■ 

Kequiescat in Pace. 

Resolved, That a copy of the above be sent 
to the widow and family of our late Bishop, 
and to the "Church Guardian" and Omaha 
papers. 



104 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

FROM THE CATHEDRAL VESTRY. 

WHEREAS, It has seemed good to an inscru- 
table Providence to take out of this world the 
soul of our Right Reverend Father in God, 
Robert Harper Clarkson; and 

Whereas, While yet his strength was 
unabated and many years of pious service 
seemed before him, he expressed the wish to 
be interred in the Cathedral yard; and when 
he lay on his sick bed and foresaw death near 
at hand he repeated this wish, with the request 
that it be communicated to this body for its 
action in that behalf; and 

Whereas, He gave to his Divine Master 
and to His Church thirty-five years filled full of 
labors which never remitted in severity and 
zeal, and, fruitful to a singular degree, were ren- 
dered with an unfaltering and indomitable 
spirit, and with a self-heedlessness never sur- 
passed by any Christian hero, all which life of 
toil was irradiated by a buoyancy, a grace, a 
sweetness and loveliness that, covering from 
the eyes of others the weariness and the anxi- 
eties of his life, made him ever a delight and 
a strong support to all to whom it was given 
to know and come near him; and 

Whereas, While we recognize the great 
service which he gave to the more general 
interests of the Church, the Board of Missions, 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 105 

the care of all the Churches, the nursing of the 
schools, the planting and building up of chari- 
ties, the assistance which by advice and en- 
couragement and helpfulness he gave to his 
brethren of the Episcopate, we here remember 
with an unbounded gratitude what he was 
pleased and zealous to do for this Cathedral 
parish and congregation; his frequent preach- 
ing, full of a mellifluent and persuasive elo- 
quence; his constant care of the interests of 
the parish; his tender sympathy with all who 
sought his counsel ; and, above all, his last 
great work of building this beautiful Cathedral, 
which will stand a true monument to his name 
from generation to generation : 

It is by this vestry of his Cathedral Church 
Resolved, That, with deep and unfeigned 
thankfulness that it was put into the heart 
of the Bishop to desire to repose at last 
under the shadow of his Cathedral, so that 
these grounds shall be consecrated by the 
sacred dust which they are to receive, this 
vestry gives its unanimous consent to his 
interment in the spot of his own selection, 
under the great window of the south transept; 
and we do undertake and promise that the 
same shall be faithfully kept and cared for, as 
a hallowed shrine to which men shall come to 
pay the homage of their reverence and love. 
Surely with a new meaning will be sung in the 



106 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Cathedral, "Make them to be numbered with 
Thy saints in glory everlasting." 

Resolved, That, deeply sensible of the per- 
sonal loss which each of us has sustained in 
the death of our first Bishop, and mourning 
for him as a more than kinsman, we cannot 
forget the broken hearts of wife and children, 
and brothers and sisters, to whom we give our 
most sincere sympathies. 

FROM ST. JAMES CHURCH, CHICAGO. 

Whereas, on the tenth of March, in the 
year of our Lord 1884, in the Cathedral City 
of Omaha, it pleased God in His goodness to 
call to the joy and peace of Paradise the soul 
of Robert Harper Clarkson, first Bishop 
of Nebraska, and for seventeen years rector of 
St. James Church, Chicago, Illinois, 

We, the rector, wardens and vestrymen of 
said church, desire to place upon record the 
following minute of respect and affection to 
the memory of the departed prelate and 
pastor. 

The Reverend R. H. Clarkson, coming to us 
directly from his alma mater, St. James Col- 
lege, Maryland, assumed the charge of this 
parish in the spring of 1849, while yet in 
deacon's orders; and by his untiring efforts, his 
urbane manners, his loving interest, his wise 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 107 

administration, he so managed its affairs that 
it secured for itself the position of the leading 
parish in the Diocese. 

He was preeminently the faithful pastor, 
whose strength lay in his great and loving 
heart, in his wide sympathy with the poor and 
afflicted, in his interest in the children, who 
were unconsciously drawn toward him by his 
genial and affectionate manners, in the earnest- 
ness and salf-sacrifice with which he labored 
for the good of souls and the welfare of this 
parish. 

By his large-hearted devotion to his people, 
his willingness to spend and be spent in the 
attainment of any good for us, he speedily 
captivated all our hearts and won for himself 
and his Church an honored name wherever 
known. 

It is impossible in our minds to separate 
the prosperity of this parish from his zealous 
labors amongst us, and the prayerful solicitude 
during the years that have intervened since 
his departure from us. 

It was the same spirit of self-sacrifice that 
induced him to undertake the labors and 
hardships of a Missionary Episcopate on the 
frontier. What his work has been there, the 
present flourishing condition of the Diocese of 
Nebraska bears ample testimony. 

Greatly beloved and sincerely mourned by 



108 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

all who knew him, — to no people or commu- 
nity was he more near and dear than to us of 
this parish, his first and only charge until his 
elevation to the Episcopate. St. James Parish 
will not easily forget Bishop Clarkson. whom 
it was always glad to welcome and honor. 

Consecrated as his life was to the Master's 
service, we humbly believe that he has entered 
into the rest that the Master has prepared for 
all His true and faithful servants. 

May he rest in peace, and may light eternal 
shine upon him. 

FROM THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF NEBRASKA 
COLLEGE. 

WHEREAS, In the providential dispositions 
of Him in whose hands we are; who doeth all 
things for purposes wisely known only to 
Himself, it has been the Almighty will to 
transfer from labors earthly to a sphere higher 
and holier, the honored and useful President of 
Nebraska College, the Right Rev. Dr. Clark- 
son; therefore, 

Resolved, That with that becoming reverence 
due from creatures to their Creator, we bow 
in humble submission to this Divine decree, 
with full faith praying, Thy will, not ours, be 
done. 

Resolved, That while we can but feel the 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. IO9 

cause of education, the Church, society and the 
commonwealth at large have lost an able, 
earnest friend, we rejoice that the works he 
leaves us as an inheritance speak in language 
more impressive than words we can frame or 
utter of his having " fought the good fight," 
and left this world much the better for his 
having lived in it. 

Resolved, That while the mortal man has 
gone from among us, and the immortal entered 
upon that realm from whence come neither 
tidings nor greetings, his life was an " epistle 
known and read of all men." 

Resolved, That with confidence we cite the 
young men of this and other schools he inau- 
gurated and directed, to his life and services as 
worthy of imitation by all who aim for useful 
lives. 

Resolved, That the Secretary be requested 
to forward a copy of these resolutions to the 
family of our deceased President. 

FROM THE TRUSTEES OF BROWNELL HALL. 

Solemnly sensible of our great bereavement, 
but humbly submissive to the behest of our 
Heavenly Father, in the removal of our dear 
Bishop from the midst of his labors to the rest 
of Paradise, we, the Trustees of Brownell 
Hall, of which Board the late Rt. Rev. 



IIO BISHOP CLARKSON. 

Robert Harper Clarkson, D.D., LL.D., was 
President, and of which institution he was 
visitor, here record an expression of our rec- 
ognition of his noble service to Christian edu- 
cation, our great loss and profound sorrow. 

By nature and grace he was wonderfully 
fitted for a great teacher. A natural love for 
the young, a proverbial thoughtfulness for their 
happiness, a remarkably lovable nature, a sin- 
gular simplicity and a wonderful adaptation of 
word, action and even self to youthful taste, 
feeling and comprehension, leave him an un- 
dying name as an educator; while with all his 
actions and intercourse was unostentatiously 
but inseparably blended the sublime benedic- 
tion of the Apostle — like the ancient seer from 
the Mount of God, as he delivered his simple 
and holy precept — he was himself the least 
conscious of the glory 'mid which he moved. 

From the beginning of his Episcopate he 
foresaw the necessity of institutions of learn- 
ing for the building up of the Church. His 
pastorals and public addresses abound with 
this root idea. He founded such institutions 
and fostered them with labor unwearying, care 
incessant, and with the meagre means which a 
new country could supply. 

Brownell Hall for eighteen years has been 
the child of his love. In his own Cathedral 
city, under his own eyes, he has watched over 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. Ill 

and cared for it with all the solicitude of a 
parent. When the school was in its weakness 
and its success uncertain, with his wife and 
family he made it his abode, became its rec- 
tor, gave it the benefit of his constant over- 
sight, taught daily, endowed it with the public 
confidence of his own great reputation, and 
replenished its empty treasury with his own 
private means. For years in Brownell Hall the 
young women of the West enjoyed the safety, 
culture and refinement of a Bishop's home, 
and up to the end, his birthdays were spent 
and celebrated there. 

Five hundred women educated in Brownell 
Hall, now respected and useful, filling promi- 
nent places in society and in the Church, sent 
forth with the late Bishop's blessing, and in- 
spired by his spirit, will not fail themselves to 
cherish and transmit to posterity affection and 
veneration for his memory. 

The late Bishop, himself the great exemplar 
of holy character, and valuing it above every 
accomplishment, founded a yearly medal to 
stimulate its culture in Brownell Hall, and 
any of the old pupils who is its happy pos- 
sessor, will not fail to treasure and bequeath 
as an heirloom this, his own dear estimate of 
personal worth. 

The last great task which our beloved and 
lamented Bishop had set himself was to erect a 



112 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

building for Brownell Hall, suited to its needs 
and the importance of its work. Since the com- 
pletion of the hospital, his time and efforts were 
employed in preparation for this undertaking. 
He had already procured some of the means 
necessary. The plans were ready to begin the 
building with the opening spring, when, worn 
and wearied by labor and suffering, his great 
spirit sought repose. 

We thank the Giver of all Good that this 
great man's wisdom and courage and goodness 
were spared to us so long. We are grateful 
for the example he has left us, and we will 
best prove our affection for his hallowed mem- 
ory by completing the work which he has thus 
begun. 

If sympathy may venture to mingle itself 
with sorrow so sacred, we offer ours to the 
widow and children. 



RESOLUTIONS AND MINUTES. 113 

FROM THE DIOCESAN COUNCIL OF 1884. 

For the full term allotted by custom for the 
purpose, this Church has sat clothed in the 
habiliments of mourning. The duties, events 
and services of this Council have opened 
afresh the wounds in all hearts inflicted on the 
14th of March last. We bow with reverence 
and awe, but with unassuaged grief, under the 
affliction which our Heavenly Father visited 
upon us when on that day He took to Himself 
the soul of our Bishop. Our sorrow is for 
ourselves and for a widowed Church. He 
needs not that we weep for him. He rests 
from his labors. They were abundant and un- 
ceasing and exhausting. They often sorely 
tried a tender heart ; they exceeded the 
strength of the mortal man ; they were toler- 
able only in the light of God's countenance. 
The rest was welcome to his weary spirit. 

His works shall follow him forever. In re- 
newed consecration, and to the full measure 
of the strength that shall be given us, we 
pledge ourselves anew to carry them on, and 
to transmit them to those who shall come 
after us, and to charge them never to forget 
his example. And where he is, his work on 
earth, done in the name and service of Jesus, 
will testify in his behalf. 

But we weep for ourselves. We have lost 



114 BISHOP CLARKSON. 

the love and help and thoughtfulness and 
patience of our Father in God ; we have lost 
so much we cannot tell it all, nor hardly any 
part of it. 

We weep for the Church, bereft of wise 
counsels, a great spirit, the earthly presence 
of one of her best sons. Another shall come 
to his place, but who can fill it? 

Unto the spot, within the precincts of his 
Cathedral, consecrated by the deposit of his 
dust, we and all men of all generations shall 
come and say, 

" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." 

(After completing the business of the Coun- 
cil, the clerical and lay members proceeded 
from the Chapel of the Cathedral to the Choir, 
where the Litany and prayers were said, and 
then went in order to the grave of the Bishop 
in the Cathedral yard, and sang the hymns, 
"Oh, Paradise," and "Jerusalem the Golden.") 












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